Science, Law, and Standards of Environmental Management

Oct 22, 2015
106 Gilmore Hall

Mary Christina Wood || Philip H. Knight Professor || Faculty Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program : University of Oregon School of Law

Professor Elizabeth Ridder || The Global Environment (GEOG: 1020)

 

On the eve of the hugely critical UN Climate Change Conference in Paris come November 30-December 11 (the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol), I am delighted to announce that Mary Christina Wood, author of the recent and much lauded Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age (Cambridge University Press 2013, paperback 2014), will be on campus this week.   The Philip H. Knight Professor of Law at the University of Oregon School of Law and F0unding Director of that law school’s nationally acclaimed Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, Professor  Wood will speak to the title of her recent book (in which she champions the expansion of the public trust doctrine to combat climate change and other environmental ills).  As well she should.  As the co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and former Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies), James Gustave Speth, has put it:

 

What Silent Spring did for our perceptions of the environment, Nature’s Trust should do for our perception of environmental protection.  Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this book calls for a revolution in environmental policy and law―now, before it is too late.  It is simply brilliant.”

 

Extensively published on climate crisis, natural resources, and native law issues, increasingly from a human rights perspective, Professor Wood is co-author of a leading textbook on natural resources law (West 2006) and a textbook on public trust law (Carolina Press 2013).  No ivory tower scholar, however, she originated the “boots-on-the-ground” juridical process called “Atmospheric Trust Litigation,” aimed at holding governments (and business enterprises) worldwide accountable for reducing carbon pollution within their jurisdictions.  Her research is being used in cases and petitions brought on behalf of children and youth throughout the United States and beyond. She is a frequent speaker on global warming issues and has received national and international attention for her sovereign trust approach to global climate policy.  Last Spring, for example, she was interviewed on the Bill Moyer show (http://billmoyers.com/guest/mary-christina-woodand http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-climate-crusade) in which she discussed another of her initiatives, the Children’s Climate Crusade (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=children%27s%20climate%20map).

After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1987, Professor Wood served as a judicial clerk on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and later practiced in the environmental/natural resources department of Perkins Coie, the well-known Pacific Northwest law firm.  In addition to her stewardship of Oregon’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, she is Faculty Leader of the Program's Conservation Trust Project, Sustainable Land Use Project, Native Environmental Sovereignty Project, and Food Resilience Project. 

Professor Wood’s visit to Iowa is co-sponsored by the College of Law, the UI Center for Human Rights (UICHR), and the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER); also by the Iowa United Nations Association (Iowa UNA), which has invited her to keynote their upcoming state-wide conference “Iowa, the United Nations, and Climate Change” at Drake University on Friday, October 23 ( 9 AM-3 PM).  All are cordially invited to attend.