Environmental Values And Policies: An Intro

Question 1

What is one way we can describe the scope of environmental law?

Answer 1

It extends to any place where the earth is modified by human action.

Question 2

In the 50 years before 2019, how many pollutants did we add to the atmosphere?

Answer 2

More pollutants to the planet than in the preceding 10,000 years.

Question 3

From the 20th century, how many carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning was added to the atmosphere ?

Answer 3

500 million tons at the start of the 20th century to 1.6 billion in 1950, to nearly 10 billion in 2011.

Question 4

What was the population increase from 1972 to 2017? At what rate is it growing?

Answer 4

Increased from 3.85 billion in 1972 to 7.41billion in 2017 according to the U.S Census Bureau, U.S and World Population Clocks, electronic database. The United Nations Population Division estimates it is growing at a rate of 75 million per year.

Question 5

How has the percentage of world population which has received water supplies that have been treated or improved?

Answer 5

Grew from 79% in 1972 to 89% in 2010. Although there are now (2019) 900 million people who lack access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation.

Question 6

How many premature deaths are the consequence of air pollution from particulate matter and ozone depletion? (2019)

Answer 6

6 million premature deaths annually

Question 7

What fraction of greenhouse gases in the air is caused by automobiles?

Answer 7

1/3

Question 8

What fraction of world fisheries are considered over exploited?

Answer 8

2/3 by the Food and Agriculture-Organization of the United Nations.

Question 9

What is the ecological footprint, who created it (the concept), and what does it measure?

Answer 9

The Ecological Footprint was developed by the World Wildlife Fund and others, the EF provides a measure of the human pressures being placed on global ecosystems. It estimates how much productive land is required to produce food and wood, to build and maintain human infrastructure, and to absorb the carbon dioxide people generate from energy production, expressing that estimate in terms of “global hectare, or a hectare of land with biological productivity equal to the global average.

Question 10

What was the per-capita footprint of the U.S in 2011?

Answer 10

7.9 in 2011 compared to 2.13 for China, both figures exceed the “break even” standard of 1.78.

Question 11

In 2019, how much money did environmental change mitigation efforts and the implementation of new policies cost the private sector?

Answer 11

Approx $ 200 billion per year.

Question 12

What is positive note on carbon monoxide emissions in the U’S reported by the EPA?

Answer 12

The EPA reports that emissions of carbon monoxide, 60% of which come from automobiles fell by 68% from 1980 to 2010, even though vehicle miles traveled increased by 94% during the same period

Question 13

What have been the effects of controls on the use of lea additives from 1981 to 2000. How has life expectancy increased from 1972 to 2019?

Answer 13

Controls on the use of lead additives have been more successful. emissions of lead frll 94% between 1981 and 2000. internationally, global life expectancy has been extended by 10 years since 1972 with some of this improvements early due to reduction environmental health risks

Question 14

Since when have we been overshooting the capacity of the world to sustain existing population levels.

Answer 14

Since 1980. In 2008 we overshot the earths biological capacity by more than 50%

Question 15

How much of its biocapacity (eco footprint) is the United States consuming (1992-2005)

Answer 15

The United States footprint grew by 21% between 1992 and 2005, an unacceptable rate for a country already consuming more than twice its own bio capacity.

Question 16

Since when has support for environmental policies eroded?

Answer 16

The 2008 financial crisis?

Question 17

What are the the three main perspectives which abound in Environmental ethics?

Answer 17

The economic perspective the conservationist perspective and the deep ecological perspective

Question 18

What is Aldo Leopold‘s land ethic

Answer 18

“A thing is right when it turns to preserve the integrity stability and beauty of the biotic community, it is wrong when it tends otherwise”

Question 19

What is NEPA?

Answer 19

The National Environmental Policy Act is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.

Question 20

What has Pope Francis said with regards to climate change and migrants?

Answer 20

In On Care for Our Common Home (2015), Pope Francis states “ There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. They are not recognized by international conventions as refuges; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind, without enjoying any legal protection whatsoever.

Question 21

What is one way in which some pollution credits exacerbate toxic “hotspots”?

Answer 21

These facilities are more likely than newer facilities to buy credits to pollute in lieu of controlling their own pollution because of the high costs of retrofitting existing plants.

Question 22

What is an issue in Environmental policy decision making?

Answer 22

Decisionmakers have heard the views of industry giants, conventional environmental organizations, state and local governments, and federal land managers, but not the people who actually live in the most affected areas.

Question 23

What was a telling finding of infant mortality rates between african americans and whites in 2003?

Answer 23

14.0 in 2003 for black infants and 6.8 for white infants

Question 24

What are LULUs and what are the stats about their placement near minority communities?

Answer 24

Locally Undesirable Land Uses. 56 percent of populations living within 3 kilometers of a hazardous waste site are people of color, whereas minority communities only make up 30% of the population outside these areas.

Question 25

What executive order did Bill Clinton issue regarding environmental injustice?

Answer 25

Executive Order 12,898 Fed. Reg. 7,629 (1994), which directs each federal agency to “make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.” This was pursuant to guidance published by EPA’s Environmental Justice Office in 1995.

Question 26

What did the Government Accountability Office conclude regarding the EPA’s ability to implement executive order 12,898?

Answer 26

Failed to take environmental justice considerations adequately into account when developing rules under the Clean Air Act. For instance, in developing a rule to reduce the sulfur content of gasoline, EPA analysis determined that pollution near oil refineries would be increased as a result of the rule, because the process of removing sulfur generates some air emissions, while the amount of pollution being emitted by automobiles would be decreased. “Specifically EPA did not publish its estimate that potentially harmful emissions would increase in 26 of the 86 counties with refineries affected by the rule.”

Question 27

What does section 601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit?

Answer 27

Prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin under any program or activity receiving federal funding. Section 602 authorizes agencies to issue implementing regulations tailored to agencies’ individual programs. Administrative complaints under these Title VI regulations habe become a main avenue for environmental justice advocates to challenge agency decisions they claim impose disproportionate burdens on disadvantaged communities. Under these regulations, complainants do not have to prove a discriminatory intent, which would be their burden if they sued in court claiming a violation of section 601.

Question 28

What did the Supreme Court rule regarding Section 602 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act?

Answer 28

The Supreme Court Ruled that section 602 authorizes regulations designed to avoid disparate impacts alone in Guardians Ass’n v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 463 U.S 582 (1983)

Question 29

What was the consensus among environmental activists, industries, states, and local governments with regards to EPA’s 1998 Interim Guidance describing how it would investigate environmental justice complaints in order to “accommodate the increasing number of Title VI complaints that allege discrimination in the environmental permitting process.

Answer 29

Guidance was vague, but there are disagreements on the proper clarifications.

Question 30

Who handles Title VI complaints?

Answer 30

The EPA’s Office of Civil Rights. Although mostly states administer thr day-to-day decisions of many federal statutes.

Question 31

As of 2019, how many Title VI complaints has the EPA granted?

Answer 31

Zero

Question 32

What is the major difference between section 601 of Title VI and section 602?

Answer 32

Parties that seek declaratory or injunctive relief under section 601 of Title VI requires proof of intent.

Question 33

What Supreme Court decision foreclosed the option of having Section 601 of Title VI be enforceable through proof of disparate impact

Answer 33

Alexander v Sandoval, 532 U.S 275 (2001) by denying an implied right of action to enforce agency regulations issued to implement Title VI.

Question 34

What did Justice Stevens, in his dissent in Alexander v Sandoval, suggest was a way for litigants to avoid the consequences of a denial of a private right of action under section 602’s regulations?

Answer 34

By utilizing the protections of 42 US S 1983, which establishes liability against any “person, who, under color of state law, deprives any citizen of the united states of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constituon and laws of the United States”

Question 35

After test data came back showing there was lead contamination in Flint Michigan’s waters, how did state and federal officials react?

Answer 35

They failed to inform Flint residents. They also officially denounced private groups who tried to publicize test results. Yet when General Motors complained that the water was corroding parts at a plant in Flint, government officials quietly reconnected the plant to its former water supply.

Question 36

What us the major source of human exposure to mercury?

Answer 36

Fish consumption

Question 37

In 2019 what did the EPA recommend with regards to water quality standards for mercury?

Answer 37

That water quality standards for mercury be based on the assumption that individuals consume 17.5 g of fish per day or two 8-oz fish meals per month. This rate is far lower than what is actually consumed by many subsections of the population especially indigenous peoples, members of the Ojibwe tribes of the great lakes were consuming fish at rates ranging from 115.8 g a day to 240.7 g a day in the fall and 189.6 g day 393.8 g a day in spring

Question 38

How much mercury in the U.S atmosphere is from China?

Answer 38

Because a long distance atmosphere Transport of these pollutants it is estimate at 30% or more of them are United States originate in China. 1999 US coal fire power plants immediator approximately 120 tons of mercury into the air while cold fired power plants in China made 600 tons of mercury.

Question 39

What was the first legally binding treaty took control Mercury pollution?

Answer 39

In January 2013 the Minamata Convention on Mercury was passed under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme

Question 40

What is a relationship between something being a public good and its transaction cost in public good problems

Answer 40

Transaction costs or the cost of undertaking An action of starting an injunction or just gathering support and signatures are costly because of the public nature of the injury. This is what may lead to inaction or free riding off of someone’s efforts, the result is that although there may be considerable total demand for reparations it doesn’t get expressed

Question 41

What does the economic approach to environmental problem treat the environment as as a resource?

Answer 41

That it is underpriced. The most important thing to bear in mind about the concept of value in the world for reconnaissance isn’t it is based on what people are willing to pay for something rather than the happiness that they would derive from it. 

Question 42

What is the Administrative Conference of the United States’ take on CBA analyses of benefits that save lives?

Answer 42

The AC US has recommended that except where cost and benefits are highly conjectural or unquantifiable agencies should “disclose the dollar value per statistical life” used to reach determinations that the costs of regulation are cost benefit justified.

Question 43

What New York City example supports an ecosystem perspective in investing in natural capital, making a point that it can prove more efficient than using build capital to deliver key services

Answer 43

Early 1990s a combination of federal regulation and cost realities drove New York City to reconsider its water supplies strategy New York City water system provides about one. 5,000,000,000 tons of drinking water to almost 9,000,000 New Yorkers every day 90% of the water is John from the Catskill Delaware watershed which extends 125 miles north and west of the city under amendments to the federal safe drinking water and can municipal and the water suppliers were required to filter their is is water supplies unless they could check that they had take out the steps including watershed protective measures to protect her customers from harmful water contamination. Presented with a choice between provisions of clean water through building a filtration plans were manageing the water shed in New York City easily concluded that the water was more effective it was Asmir that filtration plan would cost between 6 billion and 8 billion to build but managing the watershed would only cost 1.5 billion

Question 44

How has ignorance in ecosystem services and attention to ecosystem processes led to an ineffective environmental legal framework?

Answer 44

“Legal protection of ecosystems was not a primary objective when the relevant laws were drafted over two decades ago. Generally speaking, our pollution laws (e.g., the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act) rely on human health-based standards. Our conservation laws (e.g., the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act) are species-specific. And planning under our resource management laws (e.g., the National Forest Management Act and Federal Land Policy and Management Act) must accommodate multiple and conflicting uses. Of course, parts of these laws, such as the Clean Water Act’s Section 404 wetlands permit program and use of water quality standards, the Endangered Species Act’s critical habitat provisions, and the National Forest Management Act’s use of indicator species such as the spotted owl, clearly can help to conserve ecosystem services. The point, though, is that these laws were not primarily intended to provide legal standards for conservation of natural capital and the services that flow from it and, as many authors have pointed out, in practice they usually don’t.…”

Question 45

What are reasons that ecological service markets are hard to set up?

Answer 45

Concerns the role of markets in public goods we have no shortage of markets for most ecosystems goods such as clean water and Apple’s but the ecosystem services underpinning these goods such as water purification and pollination are free. the services themselves have no market value for the simple reason that no markets exist in which they can be bought or sold. as a result, there are no direct price mechanisms to signal the scarcity or degradation of these public goods until they fail. at which point their hidden becomes obvious because of the cost to restore or replace them.

Question 46

Why would it be difficult to artificially create a market for ecosystem services even if we tried?

Answer 46

Ecosystem services cannot be marketed until the functional linkages between different elements of the environment and valuable services are well enough understood so that realistic values can be assigned to them with sufficient reliability to give investors confidence that they are getting their money worth

Question 47

What is an interesting reversal of the common way we perceive the law with regards to new environmentally dangerous technologies?

Answer 47

Environmentalists seek to reverse the burden of proof regarding the safety of new technologies. Proponents of new technologies and substances should be required to demonstrate their safety. In our court system, people ew innocent until proven guilty. But new technologies should be seen as guilty until proven innocent.

Question 48

What are conserver societies?

Answer 48

It is on principal against waste and pollution. Therefore it is a society in which:

• Promotes economy of design of all systems, i.e., “doing more with less”
• Favors re-use or recycling and, wherever possible, reduction at source;
• Questions the ever-growing per capita demand for consumer goods, artificially encouraged by modern marketing techniques; and
• Recognizes that a diversity of solutions in many systems, such as energy and transportation, might in effect increase their overall economy, stability, and resiliency.

“In a Conserver Society, the pricing mechanism should reflect not just the private cost, but as much as possible the total cost to society, including energy and materials used, ecological impact and social considerations.”

Question 49

What is a recurring criticism of Deep Ecologists concerning environmental law’s concentration on the production level?

Answer 49

It has not looked at how consumer s-ending is a leading driver of environmental decline. Meanwhile, economists suggest that consumption takes care of itself once we “get the prices right”.

Question 50

What is a fundamental misunderstanding people have come to regarding nature’s ability to recover from ecological damage?

Answer 50

There is a Balance of Nature ethic which pervades common parlance which assumes that nature’s finctionality is that of readjustment. Much to the clntrary, it is only an adjusting mechanism which is adapts to change but is not necessarilty welcoming to it. Nature is characterized by change and not constancy.

Question 51

How does the Hutchinson Memorial Forest, established in 1950, provide an example of the lawed Balance of Naturw Myth?

Answer 51

When it was established, Life magazine ran an artfile showing a garish depiction of the forest which was supposed to be all Oak and fruitful. Although, records from 1750 show that this forest was once so widely spaced that somoen could drive a horse and carriage through it. What had occured was that Native Americans had been lighting the forest on fire to drive game and make travel easier. It turned out that Oak and Hickory were more resistant to fire than Sugar Maple, which is now populates the forest more. When the natives had been driven out and the area protected, this accelerated the rise of the Sugar Maples

Question 52

What did Aldo Leopold claim was the effect of treating ecological externalities and internalities as mere factors in a cost benefit analysis where one tries, as a single-minded rational actor, to maximize their gain?

Answer 52

“Aldo Leopold, for one, claimed that anyone approaching the environment as exclusively an object for personal gain in effect treated it as a piece of property, “entailing privileges but not obligations.”

Question 53

What communities are most likely to be able to manage the common goods problem? What condition is necessary for common goods problems to take hold with regards to production levels?

Answer 53

“Small communities are likely to be more successful at avoiding the tragedy through informal controls so long as there are no external markets for the resources. Cultural anthropologists, including especially students of Native American cultures, have identified cultural and ideological explanations for husbanding commons resources. Moreover, as Carol Rose points out, the tragedy occurs only when use of the commons reaches a level where congestion develops or where the resources are used so intensively that it exceeds the carrying capacity of the commons. ”

Question 54

Because collectives in Common Pool Resources are better off (exemplified by the Prisoner’s dilemma), what is a suggestion environmentalists make with regards to governments involvment in collectivity?

Answer 54

“Some have urged that organizing collective action to prevent tragedies of the commons should constitute a primary function of government. The late Mancur Olson, for instance, wrote that “[a] state is first of all an organization that provides public goods for its members, the citizens.”

“There are matters in which interference of law is required, not to overrule the judgment of individuals respecting their own interest, but to give effect to that judgment; they being unable to give effect to it except by concert, which concert again cannot be effectual unless it receives validity and sanction from the law. [J.S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Bk. V., Chap. XI, Sec. 12.]”

Question 55

What was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?

Answer 55

“On April 20, 2010, two days before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform killed 11 workers. The platform, located 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, had been drilling the Macondo well for the British oil company BP. For nearly three months until it was finally capped on July 15, 2010, oil gushed from the bottom of the Gulf, creating the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. A major reason why it was so difficult to contain the spill was that it occurred in waters nearly a mile deep.
”

Question 56

When considering environmental CBA analysis on exploration or exploitation of a resource, what are interesting questions to consider?

Answer 56

“How much confidence in projections of environmental impact should be required before a decision concerning a major development project is based on them? Should it depend on the likely magnitude of the consequences? On their reversibility? Is the source of such predictions relevant to assessing their credibility?”

Excerpt From
Environmental Regulation
This material may be protected by copyright.

Question 57

In December 2016, what did the Obama administration do to prevent oil drilling in offshore land?

Answer 57

“In December 2016, President Obama indefinitely banned offshore oil and gas drilling in 115 million acres (98%) of federally owned arctic waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska’s north shore”

Question 58

What was a major concern with the Keystone XL pipeline that would go from the Canadian Province of Alberta down all the way to Nebraska, 1,100 miles south. ?

Answer 58

“Environmentalists vehemently objected to Keystone XL because the oil it would carry is unusually carbon-intensive. The State Department’s draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), released on March 1, 2013, reports that lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from tar sands crude could be 81 percent greater than emissions from the average crude refined in the United States in 2005. Because the pipeline would facilitate the sale of such GHG-intensive crude for many years to come, environmentalists have been so outraged by the project that they have engaged in protests that involve civil disobedience.”

Question 59

Emmissions rom tar sand crude release how much more GHG into the atmosphere?

Answer 59

“greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from tar sands crude could be 81 percent greater than emissions from the average crude refined in the United States in 2005”

Question 60

Bruh

Answer 60

“Although the United States has only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, it has one of the world’s largest technically recoverable reserves of shale gas. In a few short years the U.S. energy supply mix has been dramatically altered by a surge in extraction of natural gas from shale formations. This phenomenon is the result of a dramatic expansion in the use of hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking.” Fracking is a technique involving underground injection of a mix of chemical fluids under high pressure to fracture and hold open shale formations to release hydrocarbons held within them. Due to expanded use of fracking, U.S. natural gas production rose from 20.2 trillion cubic feet in 2007 to 25.3 trillion cubic feet in 2012. Production from shale gas wells rose between 2007 and 2011 from less than 2 trillion cubic feet to more than 8.5 trillion cubic feet. As a result of this huge expansion in domestic supply, natural gas prices in the United States plunged from more than $9 per million Btus in 2008 to less than $3 per million Btus. Plunging natural gas prices have encouraged U.S. electric utilities to shift away from coal-fired generation[…]”

Question 61

What are the environmental risks of fracking

Answer 61

“Fracking fluids include many toxic chemicals that can pollute underground aquifers that are sources of drinking water through surface spills or poor well casing and/or cementing. These chemicals are mixed with huge volumes of water—in some cases up to 7 million gallons per well. Special care is required to dispose of wastewater generated by fracking operations. Often this is injected deep below the water table and in a few cases underground injection has been associated with small earth tremors. Fracking operations also release toxic air pollutants, including benzene and methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Fracking operations also are noisy and require a procession of heavy vehicles and equipment that industrialize rural areas and quickly deteriorate rural roads.”

Excerpt From
Environmental Regulation
This material may be protected by copyright.

Question 62

How are fracking operations exempt from environmental regulation?

Answer 62

“Many members of the public find it disquieting that most fracking operations are exempt from federal environmental regulation. The Safe Drinking Water Act directs EPA to regulate underground injection to protect public water supplies, but fracking operations that do not use diesel fuel as an additive are excluded from the definition of ‘‘underground injection.’’ This provision, contained in section 322 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. §300h(d), is often called the ‘‘Cheney exclusion’’ because it was quietly slipped into the Act at the behest of Vice President Cheney. In 2010, Congress directed EPA to study the environmental impact of fracking. In December 2016, shortly before the Obama administration left office, EPA released its report. The report found that fracking “can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances.”

Question 63

Under what circumstances idoes fracking impact eater supplies?

Answer 63

“spills during the handling of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources;
injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;

injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources;
discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water;
and
disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits resulting in contamination of groundwater resources.”

“water withdrawals for hydraulic fracturing in times or areas of low water availability, particularly in areas with limited or declining groundwater resources”

Question 64

How do state and local fracking legislation conflict in the State of Peensylvsnia? What does one require to frack in Pennsylvania?

Answer 64

“Fracking has been used extensively in Pennsylvania and operators are required to obtain a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection, but state law preempts local zoning and land use control laws from blocking fracking operations. ”

Question 65

What states have banned fracking activities?

Answer 65

“Vermont, New York, and Maryland have banned all fracking activities.”

Excerpt From
Environmental Regulation
This material may be protected by copyright.