This post is part of a series related to Teaching Environmental Law in Context, a recent book by Member Scholars Rebecca Bratspies and Carmen Gonzalez.
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.
Bratspies and Gonzalez engage in the dual work of highlighting the substantial role that quantitative analysis plays in environmental protection, along with exposing the limitations of quant-centric assessment. Their work reveals gaps in status quo regulatory processes while demanding that social and equity dimensions in risk assessment be centered. Offering a peek behind the numerical curtain, the text exposes an environmental policy stage often devoid of democratically accountable decision-making.
The text highlights the deficiencies of the “Cult(ure) of Expertise,” which often obscures and diminishes the roles and (scientific) contributions of non-credentialed, lay populations. This cult(ure) has worked to minimize the standing and the potential of general populations — especially racially and economically marginalized ones — to protect their own health and the livelihoods of their communities. This ultimately erodes public trust and the overall potential for comprehensive ecological and human health protection.
To be clear, community actors aren’t meant to supplant the skillsets of those with acute scientific expertise, but ultimately to work collaboratively toward equitable environmental futures. Absent centering community knowledge and experience, data gaps prevail along with an incomplete understanding of cumulative impacts. This can ultimately compound the risks that frontline communities are bombarded with. It’s important for those engaging in environmental analysis to develop skills that allow them to evaluate risk assessments, along with raising critical underlying questions. This chapter supports those working with students to develop the demanding and rigorous skillsets needed to do this work.
Teaching Environmental Law in Context’s approach to QRA reconciles with the social life cycle assessment (SLCA)-involved work that several colleagues and I initiated nearly a decade ago after confronting the deficiencies of energy systems analysis’ lack of engagement with questions involving democratic principles, transparency, and societal inequality. Whereas traditional life cycle assessment is indispensable for capturing the quantifiable impacts of energy projects (e.g., carbon emissions at the point of extraction or the amount of waste generated across a project’s various phases), SLCA helps qualify those impacts by illuminating how communities and stakeholders are affected and often imposed upon. Consequently, we developed a series of justice-oriented indicators across stakeholder categories and the various life cycle stages (e.g., whether or not energy consumers have choice in energy types (including renewables), who owns (and controls) energy resources, workers' access to healthcare, and the relationship between violent conflict and resource extraction). The book will certainly resonate with others engaging in similar critical environmental analysis.
There is little doubt that the current political landscape for ecological protection and environmental enforcement is under siege in the U.S., particularly on the federal level, as environmental controls are obliterated, natural habitat and species protections are weakened, and climate and renewable energy policy is dismantled, not to mention the assault and erasure of environmental justice policy and claims. There is, however, reason to be hopeful.
First off, there’s more than one game in town; that is, the national level isn’t the only place to do the business of environmental law and policy. In the face of unconscionable federal environmental rollbacks and forthright assaults, support for environmental management in domestic firewalls like California, New York, and Maryland becomes even more urgent, along with pushing those entities to be even more thorough in their rulemaking when deficient.
Additionally, there is fertile ground to engage in similar work at the regional, local, and global levels. Our environmental law and policy reckoning won’t occur without further learning and resistance, and the development of new tools to shape and support healthy, sustainable, and just engagement with ecologies is requisite; I elaborate on this in my recently released book, Unlearn Power: Strengthening Communities in the Age of Environmental Crisis.
These efforts won’t materialize without advocacy, struggle, and preparation. The environmental protection (and sanity) pendulum will ultimately pivot back toward responsibility. Preparation will involve an ensemble of players doing the work, and environmental law interests must be amongst the vanguard. I suspect Teaching Environmental Law in Context will be a critical tool in the hands of those parties at the front and supporting lines of this fight.
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Lemir Teron | August 26, 2026
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.
Amy Sinden | August 24, 2026
In Part 1, I provided an overview and some of my topline reactions to Rebecca Bratspies and Carmen Gonzalez’s excellent new book, Teaching Environmental Law in Context. In this part, I explore some specific environmental laws that Rebecca and Carmen include in their text and their creative approaches to teaching them.
Amy Sinden | August 24, 2026
Teaching environmental law has always been hard. The problem is, it’s about things our students care about. It’s about what Exxon knew, and the BP oil spill, and birds soaked with oil, and little kids with asthma or lead poisoning or cancer because wealthy people in corporate boardrooms were indifferent to the suffering of Black and Brown communities. It’s about Native Americans marching in protest to protect sacred lands their ancestors have stewarded and protected for millennia. I suppose this varies by region, but here in north Philadelphia, students come into class energized, outraged, and ready to defend the powerless and speak truth to power.
Carmen Gonzalez | August 19, 2026
My book with fellow Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies was inspired by an article written by former UN Special Rapporteur (and Member Scholar) John Knox (and co-author Nicole Tronolone) evaluating U.S. environmental law through the framework of international human rights law. With several noteworthy exceptions (such as climate change), Knox and Tronolone concluded that the U.S. (at the end of the Biden administration) generally complied with the substantive and procedural requirements of the right to a healthy environment. However, they described the government’s failure to address environmental injustice as nothing short of “catastrophic.” Far from remedying these shortcomings, the current administration is reinforcing them, as regulatory rollbacks proliferate, equity-based initiatives are dismantled, and coordinated political campaigns seek to ban the teaching of "divisive concepts" such as climate change and racial justice.
Sophie Loeb | August 18, 2026
Last year, Governor Josh Stein created the North Carolina Artificial Intelligence (AI) Leadership Council to chart a roadmap on AI leadership and policy in the state. The roadmap report published by the council leaves many important areas unaddressed and falls significantly short on others, including harms like high bills, lost jobs, pollution, drought, mass surveillance, and more.
Rebecca Bratspies | August 17, 2026
Teaching right now is no joke! This is especially true of teaching environmental law. Most of us teaching in this area have dedicated our professional lives to protecting the environment — the air, the water, the land, and of course the people who breathe that air, drink that water, and live on that land. Each day is more painful than the last as our work is dismantled in front of our eyes. Institutions that seemed solid bulwarks against tyranny are crumbling into dust. In this moment of crisis, fellow Member Scholar Carmen Gonzalez and I set out to write a book for our fellow professors struggling to find their feet — consider Teaching Environmental Law in Context a kind of love letter to the better world we are convinced we can build together with our students.
Daniel Farber | August 12, 2026
On August 5, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided Committee for a Better Arvin v. EPA, which is both a significant air pollution case and an interesting case study in how the U.S. Supreme Court has changed judicial review of agency actions. The case was brought by a group in Arvin, California, a small city near Bakersfield.
Robert Verchick | August 10, 2026
It’s August here in western Washington State, which means two things: (1) I’ll soon be packing up for my return to New Orleans (class starts soon), and (2) the smoke blowing in from regional wildfires is making my nose burn. Appropriately, the news here is full of stories about personal loss, evacuation routes, fire-suppression strategies, and the brave firefighters who put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But there’s a deeper story: Our broad approach to handling wildfire in the United States was designed for a climate that no longer exists. We must do better.
Terrill North | August 3, 2026
This is a hard moment for the work we care about. The rules that keep our air breathable, our water clean, our workplaces safe, and our government answerable to the people are under real pressure. Agencies are losing the authority to do their jobs. The idea that government should protect people when markets will not is being treated as if it were up for debate. And the communities that suffer most from pollution, unsafe work, and a warming climate are still the last ones invited into the rooms where the choices get made. I spent my childhood two blocks from a power plant grandfathered out of Clean Air Act protections in Texas and suffered from chronic bronchial infections while multiple family members and friends managed asthma. In law school, I learned to value the regulations and bureaucracy that could be made to protect people’s lives. So I am honored to join the Center’s work as executive director.