Hothouse Earth

Listen to Jenny Rushlow, dean of the Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment, professor of law, and faculty director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law and Graduate School talk about the Montana Court's ruling on Held v. State of Montana, how it relates to other cases such as the landmark climate law case she argued and won before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Kain v. Department of Environmental Protection, and how these cases advance environmental advocacy and justice.

In this episode, Pat Parenteau, Professor of Law Emeritus and Senior Fellow for Climate Policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School, chats about his career and how environmental law and policy has evolved, with podcast host, Jeannie Oliver, professor of law and staff attorney at VLGS’s Energy Clinic.

Thank you to the Vermont School for the Environment at Vermont Law and Graduate School, Jenifer Rushlow, Anne Linehan, and Donna Kowalewski at Environmental Law Center.

Guests

• David Deen, President, Connecticut River Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Trout Unlimited Vermont Council, former VT state legislator for 30 years
• Kathy Urffer, River Steward, Connecticut River Conservancy
• Julia MacDonald JD'21, Vermont Law School 
• Peter Malicky MELP'21, Vermont Law School

Recommended Resources

• To get an update on the latest in surface water legislation in VT, visit the Act 173 Committee webpage.
• For more background on the issues, read the Environmental Advocacy Clinic's report on Vermont surface waters.

Patents on living things threaten biodiversity and our resilience against climate change. In this episode, we examine how a VLS professor is helping plant breeders use “defensive publication” to keep innovations open-source and promote biodiversity.

Guests

• Jim Myers, Professor, Vegetable Breeding and Genetics, Oregon State University
• Emily Spiegel, Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, Vermont Law School

Recommended Resources

• A Breed Apart: The Plant Breeder’s Guide to Defensive Publication
• “Could a simple database prevent massive ag companies from patenting and guarding seed varieties?” The Counter, May 13, 2021.

The second episode in the Hothouse Earth Podcast’s “Elevate” miniseries features Brandi Colander JD’06. One of the first students to complete VLS’s dual degree with the Yale School of the Environment, Colander has a career that spans sectors and disciplines. Her work shows that environmental law can expand well beyond the scope of traditional environmentalism, intersecting with social justice and corporate governance. Listen as she shares inspiring career advice for women on support systems, inclusivity, disruption, confidence, and growth.

Guest:
Brandi Colander, Chief Sustainability Officer at WestRock Company

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney
Veronica Ung-Kono, JD/MERL'21 and IEE Research Associate

Recommended Resources:

Operating with the Full Life Cycle in Mind  - A Q&A with WestRock Chief Sustainability Officer Brandi Colander
Vermont Law School Dual Degree Programs

Guest
Karin Sheldon, President of Four Echoes Strategies and Adjunct Professor at Colorado Law University of Colorado Boulder

Hosts
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney, Energy Clinic
Veronica Ung-Kono JD/MERL 2021

Recommended Resources

Bowman, Cynthia Grant, Women in the Legal Profession from the 1920s to the 1970s: What Can We Learn from Their Experience about Law and Social Change? (2009) Cornell Law Faculty Publications. Paper 12.

 Green 2.0, exploring diversity in environmental organizations. https://www.diversegreen.org/

• See in particular, Taylor, Dorceta E., The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations, July 2014.
• 2019 report card with a summary here

Halton, Mary, Climate change ‘impacts women more than men’, 8 March 2018, BBC News. 

McCarthy, Joe, Why Climate Change Disproportionately Affects Women, 5 March, 2020, Global Citizen. 

Over the next few months, Hothouse Earth will be sharing  conversations with women about their experiences in shaping environmental and social change through the power of the law and some of the challenges that they've faced along the way. 

Environmental justice activist Fred Tutman is the only Black waterkeeper in the United States, and in this candid discussion with his close friend and fellow waterkeeper Theaux Le Gardeur, the duo reflect on how racism has affected their very different experiences in the environmental movement. Listen as they discuss how environmentalism has historically failed BIPOC communities and consider the potential—and dire need—for the movement to change.

Guests:
Fred Tutman,  Patuxent Riverkeeper
Theaux Le Gardeur, Gunpowder Riverkeeper

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney, Energy Clinic
Mason Overstreet, Staff Attorney, Environmental Advocacy Clinic

Resources:

• Chesapeake Bay Magazine – November 17, 2017 – Fearless Riverkeeper Fred Tutman fights for the Patuxent River and for the people who live alongside its shores
• Spinsheet – December 5, 2014 – Bay People: Fred Tutman, Patuxent Riverkeeper
• Bay Journal – April 11, 2014 – With river in his blood, Fred Tutman stands his ground wholeheartedly
• Capital Gazette – Oct. 2, 2013 – Fred Tutman, Patuxent Riverkeeper
• Waterkeeper Alliance – Native Son Fred Tutman, Patuxent Riverkeeper
• Smithsonian podcast: Ep. 13: The Riverkeeper
   

The outro music in this episode is WAKAN TANKA by Carl Filipiak and the Jimi Jazz Band, courtesy of Carl Filipiak, Art of Life Records and Geometric Records. 

Exploitation, heat exhaustion in a warming climate, and a heightened risk of COVID-19 are among the many challenges farmworkers face—often magnified by undocumented immigration status. Why does the law fail to protect these essential workers, and how can advocates step in where the law falls short? In this episode we speak with a Vermont-based farmworker from Mexico, activists at the organization Migrant Justice, and Vermont Law School Associate Dean Jenny Rushlow to find out.

Guests:

Jose Luis Cordova Herrera, Dairy Farm Worker
Marita Canedo, Organizer, Migrant Justice
Will Lambek, Organizer, Migrant Justice
Jennifer K. Rushlow, Associate Dean for Environmental Programs and Director of the Environmental Law Center
 

Resources:

Support and get involved with Migrant Justice.
Call your legislator to support the Vermont Coronavirus Relief Fund for immigrant families. Donate to Movimiento Cosecha’s Undocumented Worker Fund.
Dontate to Justice for Migrant Women COVID-19 Relief Fund.
Sew #Masks4Farmworkers.
Sign up to milk cows in Vermont if farmworkers get sick.
Download Housing and Employment Rights for Vermont Dairy Workers, published by Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems.
Read Associate Dean Jenny Rushlow’s latest journal article on farmworkers and access to justice.

Guests:
Sophia Kruszrewski, Clinic Director, Center for Agriculture and Food Systems
Hillary Hoffmann, Professor of Law, Environmental Law Center
Barry Hill, Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute and Adjunct Faculty at Vermont Law School
Russel Mendell, MERL’20
Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law and Senior Counsel in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic (ENRLC)

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney, Energy Clinic
Mason Overstreet, Staff Attorney, Environmental Advocacy Clinic

Guests:
Marianne Engelman Lado, Visiting Professor, Douglas Costle Chair in Environmental Law and Director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at Vermont Law School
Phyllis Gosa, sixth-generation resident of the Ashurst Bar/Smith Community
Ronald Smith, Pastor and resident of the Ashurst Bar/Smith Community
Ashley Harper JD'21, Vermont Law School
Environmental Justice Law Society at Vermont Law School - Arielle King JD/MELP’21, Jameson Davis JD'20/MELP'19, Mariana Muñoz JD'21, Jerry Thomas JD'21

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney, Energy Clinic
Mason Overstreet, Staff Attorney, Environmental Advocacy Clinic

Recommended Resources:

• EPA Slams Door to Justice on Historic Black Community, Earth Justice
• EPA Quietly Closes Complaint at Heart of Civil Rights Suit, Greenwire
• The Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing
• US Commission on Civil Rights, "Environmental Justice" (2016)
• Marianne Engelman Lado, No More Excuses: Building a New Vision of Civil Rights Enforcement in the Context of Environmental Justice, 22 U. Pa. J.L. & Soc. Change 281 (2019).
• Costle Lecture at Vermont Law School by Douglas Costle Visiting Professor of Law, Marianne Engelman Lado, No More Excuses: Building a New Vision of Civil Rights Enforcement in the Context of Environmental Justice, November 2019.

Guests:
Erik Dorfman, Activist and Poet
Russel Mendell, MERL’20
Gus Speth, Co-Founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Vermont Law School Professor 2010-2015

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney
Pat Parenteau, Professor of Law and Senior Counsel in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic (ENRLC)

Recommended Resources:

Children Change Their Parents’ Minds about Climate Change
Is There Any Point to Protesting?
What Is the Climate Strike? An Adult’s Guide to What, Why, and How to Help
Juliana vs. United States

Guests:
Barry Hill, Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute and Adjunct Faculty at Vermont Law School
Carmen Gonzalez, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney

For more Hothouse Earth, follow us on Twitter @HothouseEarth, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website, www.hothouseearthpodcast.com.

Guests:
Barry Hill, Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute and Adjunct Faculty at Vermont Law School
Carmen Gonzalez, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney
Mason Overstreet, LLM Toxics Fellow with the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic

Recommended Resources:

Professor Carmen Gonzalez's Hot Topic Lecture: Environmental Justice in the Anthropocene
Their country is disappearing, a short documentary on the Marshall Islands
Natural Disasters: Developing Resilience and Addressing Climate Refugees, VJEL Top 10 Watch List 2019

For more Hothouse Earth, follow us on Twitter @HothouseEarth, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website, www.hothouseearthpodcast.com.

In the third and final episode on Trump's "America First Energy Plan" hosts Jeannie Oliver and Mason Overstreet examine the wide variety of regulations that protect our water, air, land and public health. In an effort to put industry first, is the Trump administration ultimately putting environment last?

Vermont Law School Professor Pat Parenteau and Boston College Law School Professor Zygmunt Plater discuss the legal actions fighting regulatory rollbacks as well as the effect these decisions have on the economy and public health.

For more Hothouse Earth, follow us on Twitter @HothouseEarth, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website, www.hothouseearthpodcast.com.

Guests:
Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law and Senior Counsel in the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic (ENRLC)
Zygmunt J. B. Plater, Professor of Law at Boston College Law School

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney
Mason Overstreet, LLM Toxics Fellow with the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic

For more Hothouse Earth, follow us on Twitter @HothouseEarth, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website, www.hothouseearthpodcast.com.

Guest:
Professor John Echeverria, Environmental Law Center

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney
Mason Overstreet, LLM Toxics Fellow with the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic

Recommended Resources:

Professor John Echeverria's Hot Topic Lecture
United States District Court, Northern District of California Decision
Court of Appeals Filings
United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit Oral Arguments

For more Hothouse Earth, follow us on Twitter @HothouseEarth, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website, www.hothouseearthpodcast.com.

Guests:
Kyle Tisdel JD'05, Western Environmental Law Center
Shiloh Hernandez JD'08, Western Environmental Law Center

Hosts:
Jeannie Oliver, Assistant Professor and Staff Attorney
Mason Overstreet, LLM Toxics Fellow with the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic

With special thank you to the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law and the Top 10 Environmental Watch List 2019: http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/?toptenyear=2019