Green Counsel

Male Bonding is so 20th Century; How About Climate Neutral Bonding for the 21st?

As part of its continuing effort to encourage local rules that respond to global issues, the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance proposes "Climate Neutral Bonding."  Their strategy is for tax payers to convince state and local bond issuing agencies across the United States to adopt climate neutral bonding policies to allow citizens to "live lightly on the earth."

Tax-exempt bonds -- or munis  -- finance a huge number of public works projects by local governments, school boards, and public agencies.  In 2004 alone, there were about $230 billion in munis for 9,000 projects (excluding refinancings) in the United States.  These projects consume vast amounts of energy over their lifetime.

The proposal is that all projects funded by municipal bonds be climate neutral: i.e., any increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused by the project be offset by reductions elsewhere within the bond agency's geographic jurisdiction. Methods for achieving green house gas neutrality include: efficient design, renewable energy development, renewable energy purchasing and tree planting. Benefits include:

1. Reduced operating costs;
2. Job creation and new expertise of architects, engineers, and builders in efficient design and construction;
3. Environmental (not just climate, but also less pollution, fewer toxics, better air and water quality); and
4. Psychological.

The memorandum also includes a "Climate Neutral Bonding Resolution" that can be enacted by local municipalities.  The proposal is described in a February 2006 memorandum, "Climate Neutral Bonding: Building Global Warming Solutions at the State and Local Level." www.newrules.org/de/climateneutralbonding.pdf .

Cape Winding Down?

Typical of how renewable energy policy is conducted in Washington, Alaska Congressman Don Young seeks to derail the Cape Wind project off the Massachusetts coast by imposing a 1.5 nautical mile ban of off shore wind farms from shipping channels or ferry routes.  The ban would apply to all offshore wind projects, and not just Cape Wind. By comparison, the buffer zone for offshore oil and gas rigs is 500 feet.

Young seeks to "backdoor" the legislation by attaching it to the Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill in Conference Committee. The purpose of a Conference Committee, theoretically, is to reconcile differences between house and senate bills, and not to introduce new substantive provisions that have not been reviewed by either chamber.   

According to the NY Times, the project would displace the equivalent of 113 million gallons of oil per year and generate 3/4 of the energy needs of Cape Cod and its Islands, and is supported by residents, regional newspapers and most major environmental groups.  Congressman Young, however, has reportedly only been speaking to "NIMBY opponents" of the Cape Wind Project.

European offshore windfarms, located between 1/4 -1 nautical mile from shipping lanes, have had no reported problems.

Source:

Alaskan Lawmaker Threatens to Halt Cape Wind Project Alaskan Lawmaker Threatens to Halt Cape Wind Project, Renewable Energy Access, February 22, 2006  http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=43890

NY Times, Editorial, 2/28/06, "Sneak Attack on Cape Wind," http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/28/opinion/28tue2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Regulatory Barriers to Sustainable Development

The San Jose Mercury News recently reported on a problem that is happening around the country: a local planning board in Los Gatos, CA ordered the owner of a small solar power company to remove or cover up 18 solar panels he installed on his office roof because three were visible from the street -- the board was concerned about ``design impacts and architectural compatibility.''

The article reports that "Dozens of other cities across California are making life difficult for people who want to install solar panels on roofs and businesses, even as state leaders are trying to encourage renewable energy with millions in tax credits and rebates. Some cities require that solar panels can't be seen from roads. Others say they must be installed at the same angle as roofs, which can limit the electricity they generate."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/6448345.htm

Similar problems exist around the country. In New York, for example, some counties are requiring solar installers to have a master electrician's license, and most master electricians are not interested in doing solar installations.

What are some other examples of regulatory barriers to sustainable development and how can these issues best be addressed?

Pattern Languages of Sustainablity

How do we turn visions of sustainability into reality-- a change perhaps more radical than the agricultural and industrial revolutions? A very exciting model using "pattern languages" is being developed by Ecotrust here.

Dreaming of the Hudson

"Tell me a story, a story that will be my story as well as the story of everyone and everything about me, the story that brings us together in a valley community, a story that brings together the human community with every living being in the valley, a story that brings us together under the arc of the great blue sky in the day and the starry heavens at night, a story that will drench us with rain and dry us in the wind, a story told by humans to one another that will also be the story the wood thrush sings in the thicket, the story that the river recites in its downward journey, the story that Storm King Mountain images forth in the fullness of its grandeur."

Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, p 171-2.

Calling all Green Business Lawyers!!

Welcome! I created this blog after searching on google for lawyers who work with businesses and organizations that are creating a future for the planet -- an economy that is renewable, sustainable and green. Amazingly, even though there are lawyers marketing themselves in almost every business sector, there are virtually none devoted to working in this area. This seems suprising, given the increasing number of green businesses, green marketers and green energy sources. Obviously, there are many socially conscious lawyers, but are all of the "green" lawyers working for non-profits or for governmental agenies?

If our planet has a future -- if economy is going to mean "management of our household" as it did in the Greek (oikonomos) -- then don't green, sustainable and renewable businesses need to succeed? And don't we need green, sustainable and renewable lawyers to help facilite the legal, regulatory, governmental hurdles that these businesses will face?

Turtle Island

Turtle Island -- the old/new name for the continent, based on many creation myths of the people who have been living here for millennia, and reapplied by some of them to "North America" in recent years. Also, an idea found world-wide, of the earth, or cosmos even, sustained by a great turtle or serpent-of-eternity.

A name: that we may see ourselves more accurately on this continent of watersheds and life-communities -- plant zones, physiographic provinces, culture areas: following natural boundaries. The "U.S.A." and its states and counties are arbitrary and inaccurate impositions on what is really here.

The poems speak of place, and the energy-pathways that sustain life. Each living being is a swirl in the flow, a formal turbulence, a "song." The land, the planet itself, is also a living being -- at another pace. Anglos, Black people, Chicanos, and others beached upon these shores all share such views at the deepest levels of their old cultural traditions -- African, Asian, or European. Hark again to those roots, to see our ancient solidarity, and then to the work of being together on Turtle Island.

--Gary Snyder, from Turtle Island