Environmental Law and Policy Gathering

After some remarks from various sponsors, a free half-hour cutting-edge CLE exploring climate change law and sustainable development with editors professor Jessica Owley (UB School of Law) and Keith Hirokawa (Albany Law) on their new book: Rethinking Sustainability to Meet the Climate Change Challenge, published in 2015 by the Environmental Law Institute.

The book asks whether the concept of sustainability as we know it reached the end of its useful life? A term that means many things to many people, “sustainability” has been a positive driving force across all levels of society in a broad-based effort—either through laws and treaties or voluntary action—to keep our planet and our people healthy. But none of those efforts have managed to prevent climate change. A reality that’s here to stay, climate change is bigger than we would have imagined even 20 years ago. This volume presents a collection of papers from experts in the field articulating a wide range of thoughtful ways in which various conceptions of sustainability need to be re-examined, refined, or articulated in greater detail to address these challenges. The chapters reflect the kind of thoughtful and sophisticated thinking that is needed to accelerate the transition to sustainability in the face of a changing climate. As Editors Jessica Owley and Keith Hirokawa note, one of the main challenges is the need for a better understanding of the issues and developing the proper means of communicating them.

Sponsors: UB School of Law's Environmental and Natural Resources Program, the Buffalo Environmental Law Society, the Buffalo Environmental Law Journal, the UB Sustainability, the Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, UB ReNew (Research and Education in eNergy, Environment & Water), and the Environmental Law Institute.