Green All the Lawyers
(Page 3 of 3)
September-October 2008
interview by Carla A. Wise, from High Country News
You recently presented your work at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. What was the reaction of the attorneys there?
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It was like a light going on, frankly, because it’s a totally different approach. So far, attorneys have clung to the statutory claims that are most familiar to them. And those claims, like the Clean Air Act or the National Environmental Protection Act, are fine for stopping individual actions that contribute carbon. But they are not going to reduce carbon overall in the time we have left.
That is the most urgent matter. This approach underscores, or brings to light, an organic duty on the part of virtually every level of government.
The attorneys saw the power of that. Rather than suing every single government agency, just a few lawsuits declaring this would change the paradigm by which we are approaching climate. Suddenly, the pieces fall into place. Every government has to take its share of responsibility.
What’s next?
Well, I’ve just launched the theory, and I’ve provided the road map. I’m not going to be involved in any way in litigation because I’m an academic, but I’m quite confident now that trust claims are going to be brought in the context of climate. How [practicing attorneys] bring them is up to them.
So you actually believe that this is a realistic approach and that it could help to prevent climate meltdown, as you call it?
Oh, I do. But I would never say that this is the silver bullet. Because, as [environmental activist and writer] Bill McKibben has said, if climate is to be solved, it’s going to be solved with silver buckshot, not with a silver bullet, and this is my buckshot. This is just one little buckshot, but it’s my buckshot, and it’s something people hadn’t thought of.
Carla A. Wise is an environmental writer and conservation biologist based in Corvallis, Oregon. Excerpted from High Country News(May 12, 2008), winner of the 2006 Utne Independent Press Award for Best Local/Regional coverage; www.hcn.org.
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