Awareness and activism over climate change has to translate to policy and action. But it is not enough for governments to nip at the margins of industrial excess through regulation to deliver us to carbon neutrality by 2045. It is not enough to wait passively for some silver bullet, some technological breakthrough or combination of breakthroughs coming from the private sector to deliver us carbon neutrality by 2045.     Whole sectors of the economy must change in order to meet this goal. We need robust and directed research and development (R&D) to deliver us the world we want in 2045. Picture 2045, given our hopes and expectations for our own lives as of 2020. We want meaningful lives for ourselves and our offspring. We want to make ethical choices in our consumption habits. We want security and sustainability. All these general goals are the language of the Green New Deal. At a pedestrian level, we want coffee in the morning after a good night’s sleep. We w...

The first modification of the Constitution after it was adopted, emerged to remedy a concern over the vulnerability of States to private and foreign lawsuits that would essentially, nullify their authority to make laws at all. The 11th Amendment extends the right of sovereign immunity to States. States can waive this immunity, and sometimes they do. But courts have long upheld sovereign immunity (as long as it does not interfere with the 14th Amendment’s abolition of slavery). Sovereign immunity is a handy tool in the tool chest that can be used in defense of environmental laws. Clean air, clean water, and preservation of nature are, after all, sovereign interests within a state’s borders. They can can and should be spelled out as such. That relates to States though, not local governments. Local efforts to create a more democratic and sustainable world through environmental laws will inevitably receive opposition not only in enacting them, but also afterwards in lawsuits brought by we...