Earth Equity News

Public Trust Doctrine Could Spur Government Climate Action. By Bennett Hall, Corvallis Gazette-Times, May 31, 2008. "University of Oregon law professor Mary Wood is tired of waiting for government officials to take action on global warming. So she's devised a new legal tool to hurry them up. Drawing on her background in both natural resources and property law, Wood has developed a theory that claims the atmosphere is an asset that belongs to all but is held in trust by the government. The government has a legal obligation to protect that trust from harm, she argues, just as financial managers have a legal obligation to protect the monetary assets in their care... Wood, 45, has worked tirelessly for more than a year to promote the idea, writing articles for legal journals, presenting at conferences, speaking on college campuses and radio programs and co-authoring a [forthcoming] book titled The Dawn of Planetary Patriotism. Her theory began to get some traction among public interest attorneys [in December, 2007] after she [delivered this keynote address, PDF 19 pp] at an environmental law conference in Eugene. Afterward, a group of 30 attorneys formed a task force to explore ways to take Wood's atmospheric trust doctrine from the classroom to the courtroom... Greg Costello is one of the public interest attorneys evaluating Wood's proposal as the basis for potential lawsuits. He thinks it could be a successful legal strategy because it's grounded in a widely accepted principle of common law. 'Public trust doctrine is a doctrine everybody learns in law school. It goes back to Roman times,' said Costello, executive director of the Eugene-based Western Environmental Law Center... Although her atmospheric trust doctrine provides a basis for litigation, she'd rather see government at all levels -- local, state and federal -- begin acting to halt global warming. The greatest contribution she can make to that effort, Wood said, is to create a conceptual framework that helps people understand government has an obligation to act."