Category: Printed
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The (Un)just Use of Transition Minerals: How Efforts to Achieve a Low-Carbon Economy Continue to Violate Indigenous Rights
Introduction For the last two decades, policy makers from around the globe have foreseen the need to derive and implement solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change. And the impetus for these solutions is confronting the world in real time. Recently the United Nations Secretary General referred to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
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No Credit Unless You Show Your Work: How Judges Can Stop the Gaming of Climate Change Discount Rates in Federal Rulemaking
Introduction How should the federal government balance costs today against benefits a century from now? The question sounds highly abstract and philosophical, but federal agencies must distill the answer into one number: a discount rate. The number selected by federal agencies and subject to review by federal judges may determine the future habitability of Earth.…
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Securitization of Coal Plant Retirements: Implications for Just Energy Transitions
Abstract Climate change and its destabilizing effects are already here. Yet there is a chance to prevent even worse scenarios if carbon emissions can be quickly and drastically reduced, especially in the carbon-intensive energy sector. While the need to transition to low-carbon, renewable sources of energy is urgent, many legal, political, and economic barriers stand…
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What’s Mine is Yours: An Analysis of the Federal Laws Used to Compensate the Navajo Nation and Remediate Abandoned Uranium Mines and Mills on the Reservation
Introduction The United States monopolized radioactive ore during the Cold War era, incentivized uranium mining on the Navajo Nation, and manipulated the Navajo government into approving mining leases. This Note argues that the United States should remediate the numerous radioactive waste sites on the Navajo Reservation and compensate the Navajo Nation for…
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The Little Colorado River Project: Is New Hydropower Development the Key to a Renewable Energy Future, or the Vestige of a Failed Past?
Introduction The Colorado Plateau consists of a series of stunning plateaus and mesas, all situated within a larger basin.[2] Despite being categorized as an arid region, perhaps the most crucial element in shaping the Plateau’s geography, as well as its human past, is its hydrology. The principal water body on the…
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The Rise of Critical Infrastructure Protest Legislation and Its Implications for Radical Climate Activism
Introduction The global crisis of climate change looms large over every aspect of our society today. It presents an increasingly potent existential danger to humanity, as the widespread consequences of rising global temperatures include increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, more frequent heatwaves and droughts, and extreme and unseasonal natural disasters and weather events.[2] The…
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Indian Allottee Water Rights: A Case Study of Allotments on the Former Malheur Indian Reservation
Introduction The right to use water is key to making land productive and valuable. This Article will address the little-known topic of the rights of Indian allottees (those Indian individuals who were allotted lands under the General Allotment Act), and their descendants, to use water for agricultural and development purposes on allotment lands. Many…
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The Clean Energy Dilemma: How the Push for Clean Energy Could Threaten Indigenous Communities and an Exploration of Potential Alternatives
Introduction The Biden Administration’s efforts to combat climate change by moving toward clean energy are poised to have an outsized impact on Indigenous communities if critical minerals slated for clean energy projects are obtained through new mining. This is because much of the untapped supply of these minerals is located near tribal land. The nation’s…
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Towards Energy Democratization
Introduction This Article examines the progress of renewable energy and energy decentralization in Sweden and Denmark. Both countries have numerous projects underway aimed at reducing dependence on fossil fuels and promoting greener energy options. These projects include boosting energy usage from renewable sources and adopting tools and technologies that will facilitate energy security and…
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Let My People Go Fishing: Public Stream Access and Navigability on Colorado’s Rivers
Introduction Every year in June, as snow in the high country melts and fills Colorado’s rivers, there is a gathering in the small mountain town of Salida. The festival is known as FibArk, and people from all over the country bring rafts, kayaks, tubes, and all manner of vessels to float down…