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Past Events

CLEANR & UCI Newkirk Center for Science and Society Speaker Series: Caroline Farrell

3/23/2023
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM
401 E. Peltason Drive, Suite 1000, Irvine, CA 92697-8000 

The UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resouces and the UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society welcome Caroline Farrell, Executive Director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment.

The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment (CRPE) is a national environmental justice organization that provides legal, organizing, and technical assistance to low-income communities and communities of color. CRPE has worked to further climate justice from its inception. centering the racial, social, and economic inequities of climate change and prioritizing local solutions to this global problem. CRPE worked with allies to help pass SB 32, AB 197, and other legislation; opposed fast-tracked oil and gas permitting in California; challenged the legality of Climate Change Scoping Plans under AB 32; and represented the Native Village of Kivalina, an Inupiat community in northwestern Alaska, in a lawsuit against the world’s top global warming polluters, among other campaigns. CRPE's current efforts include working with communities to transition to clean energy-based economies, addressing the impact of short-lived climate pollutants, and advocating for direct regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and an equitable carbon pricing system.

About the Speaker

Caroline Farrell is Executive Director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment based out of CRPE’s Delano office. For over 14 years she has assisted low-income communities and communities of color in the south San Joaquin Valley and throughout the country in their struggle for environmental justice. She quickly established a reputation as one of the Valley’s foremost environmental justice advocates, going toe-to-toe with agricultural polluters from Fresno to Bakersfield. Caroline has represented low-income communities and communities of color on issues related to hazardous waste facilities, dairy development in the Central Valley, land application of biosolids, and land use planning issues. Caroline serves on the Steering Committee for the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, the Steering Committee for the California Environmental Justice Alliance, the Impact Fund’s Grant Advisory Committee, and the Board of Directors for Communities for a Better Environment, the Planning and Conservation League, and Act for Women and Girls in Visalia. She is the author of many articles and chapters, including "Structural Racism, Structural Pollution, and the Need for a New Paradigm" (with Luke Cole), "SB 115: California's Response to Environmental Justice - Process over Substance," "Creating a Just Transition from the Ground-Up" (with Madeline Stano), and "Climate and Environmental Justice Policies in the First Year of the Biden Administration" (with J. Mijin Cha and Dimitris Stevis). 

A live webinar is available for remote participation. Zoom link will be sent in confirmation email upon registration.

 

CLEANR, Newkirk & Azul | Coastal Justice Lab - Public Launch

3/9/2023
12:00:00 PM to 1:30:00 PM
401 E. Peltason Drive, Suite 1000, Irvine, CA 92697-8000

Coastal regions, including public trust lands, are of unique importance to environmental and climate policy, infrastructure development and ecosystem management. They also raise unique challenges for disadvantaged communities, including those who live and work along the "Hidden Coast" - low-lying lands and non-oceanfront tidal and estuarine zones that account for 80% of the national shoreline. The Coastal Justice Lab is a joint program led by Azul, a Latinx-led and -serving environmental justice organization focused on coastal and marine conservation, and the Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources at UCI Law. The Coastal Justice Lab is unique among efforts to advance environmental justice in coastal regions. It focuses on legal and interdisciplinary research to ensure that the work of federal, state, and local agencies, planning and regulatory proceedings, and compliance and enforcement initiatives advance principles of environmental justice and community involvement and ownership. The Coastal Justice Lab's work includes policy proposals, draft legislation, convening reports, facilitated dialogues and peer-reviewed research to support ongoing community and agency initiatives.

Speakers include:

Emma Cervantes, California Sea Grant Law and Policy Fellow, California State Lands Commission

Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš, Founder and Executive Director, Azul

Gregg Macey, Associate Director for Environmental Justice, Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources, UCI Law

Javier Padilla, Environmental Justice Analyst, California Coastal Commission

Yessica Ramirez, Environmental Justice Liaison, California State Lands Commission

Sumi Selvaraj, Environmental Justice Manager, California Coastal Commission

Noaki Schwartz, Deputy Director of Communications, Environmental Justice, and Tribal Affairs, California Coastal Commission

Zoom webinar available for remote participation (link sent with registration confirmation).

 

CLEANR & Newkirk Center for Science and Society Speaker Series | Jill Harrison: From the Inside Out

3/9/2023
3:00:00 PM to 4:00:00 PM
UCI Law

The UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR) and UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society welcome Jill Harrison, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado Boulder.

In this presentation, Harrison will present key findings from her book, From the Inside Out, which lifts the veil on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other environmental regulatory agencies to offer new insights into why they fail to reduce harmful toxics and other hazards in our nation’s most environmentally overburdened and vulnerable communities. In it, she examines environmental regulatory agencies’ “environmental justice” (EJ) programs and policies as a case through which to understand why, despite reducing air and water pollution for the nation overall, government has not protected the communities who suffer the most. Other scholars have shown that budget cuts, industry pressure, regulatory authority, and other factors outside the control of agency staff constrain the possibilities for EJ reforms to regulatory practice. Harrison’s research shows that agencies’ EJ efforts are also undermined by elements of regulatory workplace culture — particularly colorblind notions of racial fairness that circulate within these agencies and the nation overall. Through extensive interviews with and observations of staff at numerous environmental regulatory agencies across the United States, Harrison shows that agencies’ EJ efforts are undermined by everyday ways in which well-meaning staff dedicated to environmental regulation reject EJ reforms as violating what they think their organization does and should do. She will also identify several ways in which environmental regulatory agency investments into EJ policies, programs, and practices have changed in recent years, and what are some important areas that require empirical investigation. 

 

CLEANR & Newkirk Center for Science and Society Speaker Series | Charles Lee: U.S. EPA’s Emerging Cumulative Impacts Framework

2/15/2023
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

The UCI Law Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources (CLEANR) and UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society welcome environmental justice pioneer Charles Lee.

Lee will present key concepts associated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s emerging framework to assess and address cumulative impacts and their implications for research, policy development and practice. In EPA's Equity Action Plan pursuant to Executive Order 13985, the agency determined that lack of a consistent, cross-agency framework to address cumulative environmental impacts is a major barrier to achieving equity. Cumulative impact assessment is a research and policy area of tremendous vibrancy and growth. For example, by 2023, one quarter of states in the U.S. had pending or enacted legislation regarding cumulative impacts. As an area that points to major shortcomings in the way that environmental protection has evolved over the past fifty years, cumulative impact assessment continues to call for new paradigms and sound scientific foundations. Lee will consider issues including: (1) the relationship between cumulative and disproportionate impacts, including implications of addressing the relationship between the concentration and distribution of environmental burdens and benefits; (2) how to ensure that the totality of exposures of overburdened communities is considered when assessing and addressing cumulative impacts; (3) how to ensure that information from disproportionate and cumulative impact assessments fits with and informs pertinent regulatory decision structures; (4) how to ensure that EPA’s approaches to cumulative impact assessment and cumulative risk assessment complement and reinforce each other to best inform decisions; and (5) how to facilitate greater attention to and action on upstream factors such as land use planning and infrastructure investment. These and related conversations underway at agencies such as EPA require input and collective learning from multiple academic disciplines and broad sectors of society.

About the Speaker

Charles Lee is a founder of the environmental justice movement in the United States. He was the principal author of the landmark study Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, organized the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, and spearheaded the emergence of federal environmental justice policy. He was a charter member of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Charles served in multiple leadership roles at the Environmental Protection Agency, including Director of the Office of Environmental Justice and now Senior Policy Advisor to the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.

 

UCI Long US-China Institute, GLAS & CLEANR | Dr. Shi Han, China’s Quest for Alternative GDP Measurement

3/9/2022
5:00:00 PM to 6:30:00 PM

The UCI Long US-China Institute, UCI Law Center on Globalization, Law, and Society, and UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources welcome Dr. Shi Han to present, "China’s Quest for Alternative GDP Measurement."

Abstract

Single-minded pursuit of GDP by governments at various levels has been one of the most important drivers for China’s economic miracle. Meanwhile, this has also led to severe environmental pollution and ecosystem deterioration. Over the last two decades, China started to search for alternative yardsticks to supplement the GDP assessment. Three alternative economic evaluation initiatives stand out: 1) accounting Green GDP from 2004 on, 2) policy pilots in compiling natural resource balance sheets since 2015, and 3) more recent trials in calculating the Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) for different regions. These green accounting initiatives have converged in a recent policy experiment which aims at amplifying the provision of ecosystem services as public goods through better capturing the value from largely unmarketable ecosystem services. This talk will discuss China’s efforts in developing green accounting approaches to supplement the GDP metrics, assess the current pilots in capturing nature's value in a government-dominated context, and distill some lessons from China’s unique policy experiment thus far.

About the Speaker

Dr. Shi Han has 30-years' experience in planning and implementing sustainable development in China starting right after the Rio Conference in 1992. His research has been centered on greening industrial development through circular economy, eco-industrial parks, decarbonization and ESG. Since 2014, he has led the conducting of three natural capital accounting projects in Sanya City, Hainan Province; Beilun District, Zhejiang Province; and Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Dr. Shi Han has taught sustainability-related courses at Sichuan University, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University ICB. He obtained his Ph.D. in industrial ecology from Yale University and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tsinghua University.

 

CLEANR | In Conversation with Steven Donziger | POSTPONED

10/26/2021
4:00:00 PM to 5:30:00 PM

*This event has been postponed. We apologize for the inconvenience and will update as soon as we have new details.*

CLEANR welcomes Steven Donziger, human rights attorney famous for winning a historic pollution judgment against Chevron for their business operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Mr. Donziger has been detained by U.S. Courts for over 800 days in an unprecedented home detention of a lawyer for misdemeanor contempt. On Sept. 17, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released an opinion on the case, demanding an end to Mr. Donziger's arbitrary detention, calling it a violation of international law, and launching numerous investigations within other UN bodies. More than 60 Nobel Laureates, over a thousand attorneys, and well over a hundred organizations, bar associations, and public interest groups have voiced the need to end the criminal case against Mr. Donziger. Recently, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York sentenced Mr. Donziger to 6 months in federal jail. Donziger’s attorneys have asked the Second Circuit to stay the sentence pending appeal. This event is a timely opportunity to hear from the embattled human rights attorney himself as he faces the imminent threat of jail time for refusing to turn over his devices and other documents to Chevron.

 

CLEANR | California Plastic Crisis Conference Series: Impacts and Solutions at Home and Beyond | April & May 2021

5/27/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

 

CLEANR | California Plastic Crisis Conference Series: Impacts and Solutions at Home and Beyond | April & May 2021

5/20/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

 

CLEANR | California Plastic Crisis Conference Series: Impacts and Solutions at Home and Beyond | April & May 2021

5/13/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

 

CLEANR | California Plastic Crisis Conference Series: Impacts and Solutions at Home and Beyond | April & May 2021

5/6/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

 

CLEANR | California Plastic Crisis Conference Series: Impacts and Solutions at Home and Beyond | April & May 2021

4/29/2021
7:00:00 PM 

 

Environmental Law Society Career Panel

3/23/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

ELS will be hosting an environmental law career panel. Our panel will be moderated by Melissa Kelly from the Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR). We have the fortune of hearing from the following amazing attorneys: Heather Kryczka from NRDC, Regina Hsu from Earthjustice, Sarah Spinuzzi from Orange County Coastkeeper, and Staley Prom from Surfrider Foundation. While this opportunity is valuable for everyone, ELS strongly encourages any 1L interested in environmental law to attend, as past panels have led to summer externships

 

CLEANR | Toward a Sustainable 21st Century Series: Implementing and Scaling Resilient Solutions in Coastal California

3/3/2021
9:00:00 AM to 12:30:00 PM

Join us for this free virtual 2-day event to learn about coastal resilience needs, priorities, and strategies being employed across California and the nation from some of the leading policy makers, scientists, and local government leaders working on the forefront of solving these issues.

Coastal Resilience Conference Themes Include:

• State Priorities and Future Goals
• Best Practices to Prepare and Scale Solutions
• Approaches to Ensure Equity in Policy, Planning, and Implementation
• Shoreline Management
• Impacts from Wildfires
• Funding for Planning and Adaptation

Conference Agenda

Hosted in partnership with UCI School of Social Ecology, UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society, and Coastal Quest

 

CLEANR | Toward a Sustainable 21st Century Series: Implementing and Scaling Resilient Solutions in Coastal California

3/2/2021
9:00:00 AM to 12:30:00 PM

Join us for this free virtual 2-day event to learn about coastal resilience needs, priorities, and strategies being employed across California and the nation from some of the leading policy makers, scientists, and local government leaders working on the forefront of solving these issues.

Coastal Resilience Conference Themes Include:

• State Priorities and Future Goals
• Best Practices to Prepare and Scale Solutions
• Approaches to Ensure Equity in Policy, Planning, and Implementation
• Shoreline Management
• Impacts from Wildfires
• Funding for Planning and Adaptation

Conference Agenda

Hosted in partnership with UCI School of Social Ecology, UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society, and Coastal Quest

 

CLEANR | Toward a Sustainable 21st Century Series: Extinction: Solutions for Species on the Brink Conference

2/10/2021
10:00:00 AM to 1:30:00 PM

This conference, hosted by the CLEANR, UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society, and Coastal Quest, brings together experts and advocates from across multiple �elds of conservation to address threats to ecosystems and biodiversity, and the e�orts being made, demanded, and imagined in order to protect and restore species in decline. The program presents a series of distinctively di�erent approaches to species conservation and management.

Workshop Themes:
•   Magnitude of the Threats and Unmet Challenges
•   Solutions: Saving Them in the Wild
•   Ex-situ conservation: The Role of Zoos and Reserves in Reducing Extinctions
•   Experimenting with Technology to Stop or Reverse Extinction
•  The Imperative for Action

Full Conference Agenda

 

CLEANR | Toward a Sustainable 21st Century Series: Extinction: Solutions for Species on the Brink Conference

2/9/2021
10:00:00 AM to 1:30:00 PM

This conference, hosted by the CLEANR, UCI Newkirk Center for Science & Society, and Coastal Quest, brings together experts and advocates from across multiple �elds of conservation to address threats to ecosystems and biodiversity, and the e�orts being made, demanded, and imagined in order to protect and restore species in decline. The program presents a series of distinctively di�erent approaches to species conservation and management.

Workshop Themes:
•   Magnitude of the Threats and Unmet Challenges
•   Solutions: Saving Them in the Wild
•   Ex-situ conservation: The Role of Zoos and Reserves in Reducing Extinctions
•   Experimenting with Technology to Stop or Reverse Extinction
•  The Imperative for Action

Full Conference Agenda

 

CLEANR & Water UCI | Speaker Series: Steve Fleischli, Natural Resources Defense Council

2/4/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

Join CLEANR and Water UCI for a discussion with Senior Attorney and Senior Director for Water Initiatives at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Steve Fleischli.  We will discuss the likely water resource priorities of the Biden administration including the future of the Waters of the United States rule, new legal or policy reforms and initiatives involving contaminants of concern (including PFAS compounds), improving infrastructure, the water/climate agenda, and water pricing and shut- offs.  Attendees are invited to submit questions during the talk for the Q&A at the end of the session.

About Steve Fleischli

Steve Fleischli is a Senior Attorney and Senior Director for Water Initiatives at the Natural Resources Defense Council. His team’s objective is securing safe, sufficient and affordable water for people and nature in a changing climate. His areas of emphasis include water quality, stormwater runoff, climate preparedness, California water policy, and the water-energy connection. Prior to joining NRDC in 2010, Steve served as President of Waterkeeper Alliance, an international environmental organization supporting local watershed programs (such as Riverkeepers, Baykeepers and Soundkeepers) in nearly 200 communities across six continents. Before that he served for four years at the Santa Monica Baykeeper in Los Angeles. He has also worked as a legal and policy analyst for the Heal the Bay organization and as an adjunct law professor at Pepperdine University School of Law.

Steve has a long history of advocacy on water quality issues both nationally as well as in Southern California, including as part of successful litigation against the City of Los Angeles in what the U.S. Department of Justice called "one of the largest sewage cases in U.S. history," and as plaintiffs’ counsel in Heal the Bay v. Browner, which resulted in an enforceable timeframe for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set pollution limits for more than 100 impaired waterways and beaches in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Steve has testified before the U.S. Congress on water quality matters and co-authored briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. NRDC, 133 S.Ct. 710 (2013). He has been regularly quoted in the national press; published op-eds in newspapers such as The New York Times and Los Angeles Times; and appeared on a variety of national news programs, including NBC Nightly News, All In with Chris Hayes, and ABC News’ “20/20.”

Steve is a graduate of UCLA School of Law and holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with majors in Economics; Environmental, Population & Organismic Biology; and Environmental Conservation. He is also the author of two novels: My Sweet Butterfly (2006) and Complicit (2013).

 

Guest Speaker Series: Richard Rothstein

1/27/2021
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM

Richard Rothstein, a Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Policy Institute, is the author of the acclaimed book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Rothstein’s book describes and analyzes how American government officials—federal, state, and local—in the 20th century deliberately imposed residential racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide. They used a variety of devices including racial zoning, subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs, tax emptions for institutions that enforced segregation, and official support for violent resistances to African Americans in white neighborhoods, among others. Constitutional scholar Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago said Rothstein’s book “calls for a fundamental reexamination of American constitutional law,” because it demonstrates that “the Supreme Court has failed for decades to understand the extent to which racial segregation in our nation is not the result of private decisions… but is the direct product of unconstitutional government action.” The book also has been praised by author Ta Nehisi Coates, for showing a “fine understanding of the machinery of government policy.” A graduate of Harvard University, Rothstein, earlier in his life, was a highly respected labor organizer, working primarily with low-wage workers in the South and California.

Co-sponsored by the UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR).

This is a virtual event. Zoom login details will be sent to all those who register.

NOTE: This event is being recorded for archival, educational, and related promotional purposes. All audience members agree to the possibility of appearing on these recordings by virtue of attending the event or participating in the event. Since this is a webinar, your image will not appear during the session.

To request reasonable accommodations for a disability, please contact centers@law.uci.edu.

Video Recording

 

 

CLEANR | A Conservation Vision for the Federal Endangered Species Act

10/16/2020
9:30:00 AM to 2:00:00 PM

In spring 2019, CLEANR and the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) convened a scoping session focused on developing a vision for effective adjustments to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) directed at advancing species conservation. This scoping session sought to facilitate meaningful dialogue around possible edits to the ESA that would build upon the successes the ESA has already achieved in protections for species and their habitat. Roundtable participants included scholars, advocates, and policymakers with expertise in species and habitat conservation efforts. In October 2020, CLEANR and EPIC will convene a second workshop roundtable that will focus on several recommendations expected to meaningfully enhance species conservation and for which practical policy changes are possible. During the roundtable, participants will develop the regulatory or legislative language that could implement these recommendations.

Please note that this event is an internal workshop, closed to public participation.

 

CLEANR | A Conservation Vision for the Federal Endangered Species Act

10/15/2020
9:30:00 AM to 2:00:00 PM

In spring 2019, CLEANR and the Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) convened a scoping session focused on developing a vision for effective adjustments to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) directed at advancing species conservation. This scoping session sought to facilitate meaningful dialogue around possible edits to the ESA that would build upon the successes the ESA has already achieved in protections for species and their habitat. Roundtable participants included scholars, advocates, and policymakers with expertise in species and habitat conservation efforts. In October 2020, CLEANR and EPIC will convene a second workshop roundtable that will focus on several recommendations expected to meaningfully enhance species conservation and for which practical policy changes are possible. During the roundtable, participants will develop the regulatory or legislative language that could implement these recommendations.

Please note that this event is an internal workshop, closed to public participation.

 

Frontiers in Environmental Law

4/22/2020
12:00:00 PM

Join the Environmental Law Society, the Environmental Law Clinic and the Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources (CLEANR) for an Earth Day Zoom Panel featuring: Alex Camacho, Joe DiMento, Michael Robinson-Dorn, Melissa Kelly, Alyse Bertenthal and Brett Korte.

RSVP details forthcoming.

 

Film Screening | Necessity: Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance

2/4/2020
12:00:00 PM to 1:30:00 PM
401 East Peltason Drive Irvine, CA 92697-8000

NECESSITY
Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance
Directed by Jan Haaken & Samantha Praus

Grounded in people and places at the heart of the climate crisis, "Necessity" traces the fight in Minnesota against the expansion of pipelines carrying toxic tar sands oil through North America. The story unfolds in a setting where indigenous activists and non-indigenous allies make use of the necessity defense in making a moral case for acts of civil disobedience. Many of these activists were part of the Standing Rock resistance in North Dakota and carry into this site of struggle their knowledge of resistance strategies, as well as their experiences of loss and trauma. The film is structured around two stories of activists engaged in civil disobedience and using the necessity defense. One case centers on activists locking down a local Wells Fargo, a major investor in the pipelines. The other centers on climate activists as they prepare for a landmark jury trial after temporarily shutting down the flow of tar sands oil as part of a multi-state coordinated action. Movement lawyers defending activists in court must prove that the threat of the climate emergency justified acts of civil disobedience and that there were no legal alternatives. Water Protector Debra Topping guides us through areas where pipelines cross tribal lands and where native resistance is mounting. Tribal attorney Tara Houska shows how the destructive path of these pipelines endanger indigenous communities most directly. The film calls into question whether legal strategies are sufficient in responding to the scale of the global climate crisis.​

Watch the trailer here.

Lunch will be provided.

            

                                 

Environmental Law Society at UCI            
 

 

CLEANR | OCMPAC Orange County Marine Protected Area Compliance Priorities Workshop

11/6/2019
5:30:00 PM to 7:30:00 PM
UCI School of Law

 

Join the Orange County Marine Protected Area Council, local enforcement officers, and community members to discuss issues affecting compliance with local MPA rules.
• Come voice your MPA enforcement concerns
• Help inform your local offi cers and resource managers
• Tell us what is happening on your beaches
• Be an active ocean steward

Presented by:
UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources | Orange County Marine Protected Area Council | MPA Collaborative Network | Orange County Coastkeeper

Refreshments will be served, and parking is free.

 

Long Institute, GLAS & CLEANR | Nengye Liu, "The Future of the Polar Regions in the Shadow of US-China Competition"

11/4/19
12:00pm to 1:00pm
UCI School of Law, Law 3750

 

ELS | CLEANR | CLEAR Film Screening and Discussion: Company Town

10/28/2019
5:30:00 PM to 8:15:00 PM
401 East Peltason Drive Irvine, CA 92697-8000

The UCI Law Environmental Law Society presents:

Company Town
Film Screening and Discussion

A groundbreaking investigative documentary that tells the story of Crossett, Arkansas, where a local pastor David Bouie galvanizes citizens against Georgia-Pacific, one of the nation’s largest paper mills and chemical plants owned by Koch Industries. It offers a rare look inside a small town ruled by a single company that has employed generations of the town’s residents while burdening them with massive pollution, sickness, and death. Company Town asks, what do you do when the company you work for and live next to is making you sick? This is the story of a modern-day David vs. Goliath.

Speakers Include:
Natalie Kottke-Masocco
Director/Writer/Producer, Company Town
Natalie Kottke-Masocco is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and activist based in Los Angeles. She has produced multiple award-winning documentaries for film and television. Her inspiration and work focuses on social justice issues, utilizing film to make an impact.

David Johnson
Executive Producer, Company Town
David Johnson is the founder of Act 4 Entertainment. He is currently a board member and former chairperson of Public Counsel Law Center, the nation’s largest public interest pro bono law firm. Johnson’s passion to improve economic justice in America is alive in his inspiring films.

Adam Paul Smith
Producer, Act 4 Entertainment
Paul Smith is the creator behind Act 4’s “What Can I Do?” social action campaign, focused on bridging the gap between inspired audiences and meaningful action. He is currently in development on multiple projects for narrative features, documentary, television, and new media.

Food will be provided.  

 

CLEANR | Economic Transition in the Anthropocene: Ensuring a Just and Sustainable Future for Humanity

4/26/2019
9:00:00 AM to 1:00:00 PM
Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
100 Academy Way, Irvine, CA 92617

We are in a period of systemic upheaval. For the first time in the evolution of life on Earth, human dominance of the planet’s biological, chemical and geological processes is seriously disrupting our critical life support systems. Profoundly related to this, the economic orthodoxy that has dominated western politics and culture for the past 40 years is rapidly losing legitimacy. In the face of multiple crises—environmental breakdown, increased inequality of income and opportunity, growing political polarization—the ideas and assumptions behind today’s economic theory fail to adequately explain or fix what is going so wrong.

Political economic paradigms do not last forever. The evident failings of mainstream economic theory, together with our growing understanding of the economy as complex, dynamic, embedded in natural environments, and deeply influenced by human history, cultures, values and behavior, suggest that the conditions for a new and better understanding of the economy are beginning to emerge. To create the space for transition we must go beyond debates focused on incremental policy change and develop a better analysis of our economic system as it is and not as we might like it to be.

This conference will explore today’s political economy and its role in shaping the Anthropocene and our future. We’ll explore questions relating to power, such as who gets what and why, how power becomes concentrated, and how can we increase opportunity and fairness while displacing entrenched vested interests. We’ll also investigate whether and how business as usual can enable us to live safely within the boundaries of nature, the ultimate arbiter of human well-being.

Featured Speakers Include:

Gayle Peterson
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Gayle Peterson is Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, where she is a founder of the Women Transforming Leadership Programme and programme director of Oxford Impact Investing. She has more than 25 years of experience as strategist, philanthropist, and trusted advisor to social investors worldwide. She is also the Co-founder and Senior Managing Director of pfc social impact advisors.

Gabriela Ramos
OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20

Gabriela Ramos is the OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20. Besides supporting the Strategic Agenda of the Secretary General, she is responsible for the contributions of the Organisation to the global agenda, including the G20 and the G7. She leads the Inclusive Growth Initiative and the New Approaches to Economic Challenges and also oversees the work on Education, Employment and Social Affairs (including gender).

Carl Safina
Founding President, The Safina Center
Endowed Research Chair for Nature and Humanity, Stony Brook University

Carl Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, and is founding president of the not-for-profit organization, The Safina Center. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals.

Full Event Schedule >

Presented by:

  

     

 

CLEANR | Economic Transition in the Anthropocene: Ensuring a Just and Sustainable Future for Humanity

4/25/2019
9:00:00 AM to 5:30:00 PM
Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
100 Academy Way, Irvine, CA 92617

We are in a period of systemic upheaval. For the first time in the evolution of life on Earth, human dominance of the planet’s biological, chemical and geological processes is seriously disrupting our critical life support systems. Profoundly related to this, the economic orthodoxy that has dominated western politics and culture for the past 40 years is rapidly losing legitimacy. In the face of multiple crises—environmental breakdown, increased inequality of income and opportunity, growing political polarization—the ideas and assumptions behind today’s economic theory fail to adequately explain or fix what is going so wrong.

Political economic paradigms do not last forever. The evident failings of mainstream economic theory, together with our growing understanding of the economy as complex, dynamic, embedded in natural environments, and deeply influenced by human history, cultures, values and behavior, suggest that the conditions for a new and better understanding of the economy are beginning to emerge. To create the space for transition we must go beyond debates focused on incremental policy change and develop a better analysis of our economic system as it is and not as we might like it to be.

This conference will explore today’s political economy and its role in shaping the Anthropocene and our future. We’ll explore questions relating to power, such as who gets what and why, how power becomes concentrated, and how can we increase opportunity and fairness while displacing entrenched vested interests. We’ll also investigate whether and how business as usual can enable us to live safely within the boundaries of nature, the ultimate arbiter of human well-being.

Featured Speakers Include:

Gayle Peterson
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Gayle Peterson is Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, where she is a founder of the Women Transforming Leadership Programme and programme director of Oxford Impact Investing. She has more than 25 years of experience as strategist, philanthropist, and trusted advisor to social investors worldwide. She is also the Co-founder and Senior Managing Director of pfc social impact advisors.

Gabriela Ramos
OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20

Gabriela Ramos is the OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20. Besides supporting the Strategic Agenda of the Secretary General, she is responsible for the contributions of the Organisation to the global agenda, including the G20 and the G7. She leads the Inclusive Growth Initiative and the New Approaches to Economic Challenges and also oversees the work on Education, Employment and Social Affairs (including gender).

Carl Safina
Founding President, The Safina Center
Endowed Research Chair for Nature and Humanity, Stony Brook University

Carl Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, and is founding president of the not-for-profit organization, The Safina Center. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals.

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CLEANR | Economic Transition in the Anthropocene: Ensuring a Just and Sustainable Future for Humanity

4/24/2019
7:00:00 PM to 9:00:00 PM
Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
100 Academy Way, Irvine, CA 92617

We are in a period of systemic upheaval. For the first time in the evolution of life on Earth, human dominance of the planet’s biological, chemical and geological processes is seriously disrupting our critical life support systems. Profoundly related to this, the economic orthodoxy that has dominated western politics and culture for the past 40 years is rapidly losing legitimacy. In the face of multiple crises—environmental breakdown, increased inequality of income and opportunity, growing political polarization—the ideas and assumptions behind today’s economic theory fail to adequately explain or fix what is going so wrong.

Political economic paradigms do not last forever. The evident failings of mainstream economic theory, together with our growing understanding of the economy as complex, dynamic, embedded in natural environments, and deeply influenced by human history, cultures, values and behavior, suggest that the conditions for a new and better understanding of the economy are beginning to emerge. To create the space for transition we must go beyond debates focused on incremental policy change and develop a better analysis of our economic system as it is and not as we might like it to be.

This conference will explore today’s political economy and its role in shaping the Anthropocene and our future. We’ll explore questions relating to power, such as who gets what and why, how power becomes concentrated, and how can we increase opportunity and fairness while displacing entrenched vested interests. We’ll also investigate whether and how business as usual can enable us to live safely within the boundaries of nature, the ultimate arbiter of human well-being.

Featured Speakers Include:

Gayle Peterson
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Gayle Peterson is Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, where she is a founder of the Women Transforming Leadership Programme and programme director of Oxford Impact Investing. She has more than 25 years of experience as strategist, philanthropist, and trusted advisor to social investors worldwide. She is also the Co-founder and Senior Managing Director of pfc social impact advisors.

Gabriela Ramos
OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20

Gabriela Ramos is the OECD Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20. Besides supporting the Strategic Agenda of the Secretary General, she is responsible for the contributions of the Organisation to the global agenda, including the G20 and the G7. She leads the Inclusive Growth Initiative and the New Approaches to Economic Challenges and also oversees the work on Education, Employment and Social Affairs (including gender).

Carl Safina
Founding President, The Safina Center
Endowed Research Chair for Nature and Humanity, Stony Brook University

Carl Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, and is founding president of the not-for-profit organization, The Safina Center. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals.

Full Event Schedule >

Presented by:

  

     

 

GLAS & CLEANR | Sea of Shadows Film Screening

4/1/2019
4:30:00 PM to 6:30:00 PM
UCI School of Law

Sea of Shadows is a feature documentary that follows undercover investigators, environmentalists, journalists, and the Mexican Navy on their last-minute effort to rescue the Earth’s smallest whale—the Vaquita—from extinction.

When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez, their methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the elusive and mysterious whale species known as the vaquita porpoise.

But a team of scientists, conservationists, investigative journalists and undercover agents put their lives on the line to save the last remaining vaquita and bring the international crime syndicate to justice.

 

CLEANR/ELS Film Screening: Little Pink House

3/27/2019
10:30:00 AM to 1:00:00 PM
401 East Peltason Drive Irvine, CA 92697-8000

Little Pink House dramatically chronicles the story of Susette Kelo, a resident of New London, Connecticut whose home was seized by the city under eminent domain as part of a redevelopment plan for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Kelo’s struggle, along with her neighbors, eventually reached the US Supreme Court, whose 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London affirmed the government’s right to condemn a neighborhood for the interests of private developers and corporate interests, and sparked widespread public and legislative effort to limit eminent domain abuses.

10:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.: Screening
12:15–1:00 p.m.: Q&A with Producer Ted Balaker

Hosted by CLEANR and the Environmental Law Society

 

CLEANR Fire and Ice: The Shifting Narrative of Climate Change

2/9/2019
10:00:00 AM to 5:00:00 PM
UCI School of Humanities
Humanities Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697

This conference addresses the crisis of communication surrounding climate change, featuring panel discussions on data and denial; the imminence of the sixth extinction; law, justice, and sustainability; and global industrial development; with a keynote address by author, educator, and activist Bill McKibben. Please visit the event page for more details and a full conference schedule.

 

CLEANR Fire and Ice: The Shifting Narrative of Climate Change

2/8/2019
4:00:00 PM to 6:30:00 PM
A311 Student Center, Irvine, CA 92697-2050

This conference addresses the crisis of communication surrounding climate change, featuring panel discussions on data and denial; the imminence of the sixth extinction; law, justice, and sustainability; and global industrial development; with a keynote address by author, educator, and activist Bill McKibben. Please visit the event page for more details and a full conference schedule.

 

CLEANR/CLEAR Book Talk: What the Eyes Don't See

1/23/2019
5:00:00 PM to 6:00:00 PM
A311 Student Center, Irvine, CA 92697-2050

Pediatrician, professor, and public health advocate Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha will sit down with UCI Assistant Professor Alana LeBron to discuss her new book, "What the Eyes Don't See," detailing her research and advocacy to expose the Flint, MI water crisis.

Book signing will follow. First 350 RSVPs will receive a free book.

Hosted by UCI Wellness, Health & Counseling Services, with support from UCI Population Health and Disease Prevention; UCI Community Resilience; UCI School of Humanities; UCI Law Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources; UCI Law Center on Law, Equality and Race, and the UCI Departments of History, Athropology, and Chicano/Latino Studies.

 

CLEANR Solutions to Plastics

11/5/2018
9:00:00 AM to 5:30:00 PM
Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering
100 Academy, Irvine, CA 92617

This conference will address the problem of global plastic pollution. Plastic products are very cheap to produce from petroleum, but extremely difficult to remove from waste streams. Nearly two-thirds of all marine plastic debris originating on land is discharged through ten rivers, two of them in Africa and the rest in Asia—where plastic from the West is often transported for recycling. The process of plastic recycling remains problematic, as not all types of plastic can be recycled together, and recyclable plastic frequently ends up as waste. Considering the great potential value that improvements to recycling and the reduction of waste hold for the global environment, this conference aims to contribute to cooperative engagement and increased understanding of potential solutions to these issues between and across the scientific community, government, business, education, and an empowered civil society.

Hosted by the Newkirk Center for Science and Society and co-sponsored by CLEANR.

 

CLEANR Speaker: Paul Kibel, "Rivers That Depend on Aquifers: Drafting Sustainable Groundwater Management Plans with Fisheries in Mind"

11/1/2018
12:00:00 PM to 1:00:00 PM
UCI School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr. Irvine, CA 92697

In 2015, California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) went into effect. SGMA requires the designation of a Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) for most groundwater basins in the state, and pursuant to SGMA each GSA must then prepare and implement a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to avoid certain specified “undesirable results.” To date, much of the focus on “undesirable results” under SGMA has been on the problem of overdraft, of groundwater pumping that exceeds groundwater recharge. However, in addition to the problems of overdraft, the “undesirable results” specified in SGMA also include the adverse effect of groundwater pumping on interconnected surface waters and the beneficial uses of such interconnected surface waters. Under the California Water Code, maintenance of fisheries and fishery habitat are recognized as beneficial uses of surface waters.

In August 2018, the Center on Urban Environmental Law (CUEL) at Golden Gate University School of Law published the guidebook Rivers That Depend on Aquifers: Drafting SGMA Groundwater Plans with Fisheries in Mind, to help GSAs and other stakeholders prepare and implement GSPs that address the impacts of groundwater pumping on fisheries in a manner consistent with SGMA’s requirements as well as requirements under California public trust law. Professor Paul Stanton Kibel, one of the co-authors of Rivers That Depend on Aquifers, will discuss SGMA and public trust requirements pertaining to the groundwater pumping impacts on fisheries, and outline the types of information and provisions that need to be included in GSPs to address such fishery-related impacts.

A joint presentation with Water UCI.

1.0 hour of MCLE credit approved by the State Bar of California. UCI School of Law is a State Bar-approved MCLE provider.

About Paul Stanton Kibel

Paul Stanton Kibel is Water and Natural Resource Counsel at the Water and Power Law Group.  He is a Professor at Golden Gate University School of Law, where he teaches Water Law and California Environmental & Land Use Law, and directs the GGU Center on Urban Environmental Law (CUEL). Prior to joining the Water and Power Law Group, Paul was a partner with the water and natural resource practice group at Fitzgerald Abbott & Beardsley LLP and worked for the California State Coastal Conservancy’s Office of Counsel and Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.  He previously co- chaired the Natural Resources Subsection of the California State Bar Real Property Section and presently serves as a faculty advisor to the California Water Law Symposium and on the Advisory Board to San Francisco Baykeeper.  His publications include the books Rivertown: Rethinking Urban Rivers (MIT Press, 2007) and Understanding Water Rights in California and the West (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming 2018) and articles on water law in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, Ecology Law Quarterly, Virginia Environmental Law Journal and Berkeley Journal of International Law. Paul is a member of the International Association of Water Law (AIDA), and served as a co-author for the Greening of Water Law guidebook AIDA prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme. Kibel holds an LL.M. from Boalt Hall Law School, University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Colgate University. 

 

CLEANR: Mitigating Climate Change through Transportation and Land Use Policy: Opportunities and Challenges

10/19/2018
9:00:00 AM to 5:00:00 PM
401 East Peltason Drive Irvine, CA 92697-8000

Allowing for greater population density has the potential to shorten commute times, make housing more affordable, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enable greater and more cost-effective investment in mass transit, and increase economic productivity. Nonetheless, local zoning boards and bodies that regulate land use give disproportionate influence to incumbent residents who oppose greater density at the expense of their potential future neighbors, economic growth, and climate change mitigation. This dynamic offers state and local governments the opportunity to reap large economic, environmental, and social gains if they could craft policies that ensure adequate housing and accessible transit in the places people where want to live. Although there exists no legal barrier to state governments exerting greater control over land use policy, it is traditionally an area of local responsibility, and imposition of strong prescriptive policies has proven politically challenging. This roundtable will explore the experiences of California, Maryland, Oregon, Washington, and New York in addressing these challenges, and engage participants in a focused discussion on potential approaches and opportunities for improved policy. 

 

Toward a Sustainable 21st Century | Strengthening the Great Blue Wall: The West Coast Response to Offshore Drilling

10/8/2018
9:00:00 AM to 5:30:00 PM
Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
100 Academy, Irvine, CA 92617

Strengthening the Great Blue Wall is a collaboration across Washington, Oregon and California to bring together tribal, state and local voices and hear their responses to proposed oil and gas drilling off the West Coast. The conference will include the perspectives of institutions of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, the legal community, grassroots advocates, Native Americans, fishermen and others to foster dialogue and increase our understanding of the role of law, and an empowered civil society, in response to these renewed threats. We hope to provide participants with the opportunity to explore alternative strategies and recommendations, and to examine options for effective legal actions.

Conference Schedule >

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