The Environmental Forum

LEAD FEATURE ❧ Youth plaintiffs in Oregon are suing the federal government for climate inaction — one of many similar suits around the country and the world. Litigation based on the public trust doctrine can be difficult to win, but Millennials are speaking out about an issue that profoundly affects them.

CENTERPIECE ❧ Establishing a nationwide system for carbon reporting and an offset exchange will empower states, municipalities, and businesses to decrease emissions while increasing investment in clean energy and improving transparency and accountability.

COVER STORY ❧ By examining the structures that Scott Pruitt dismantled during his tenure at EPA, the agency’s mission comes into focus and a blueprint for rebuilding its functions is revealed — if successor Andrew Wheeler likes the shape intended by the pollution statutes’ drafters.

TESTIMONY ❧ I started at EPA just after the Clean Water Act was passed and have helped to implement it at the federal and state levels ever since. Now retiring as executive director of the Rivanna Conservation Alliance in central Virginia, I have come to realize that government policymakers can learn a lot by studying solutions worked out at the watershed level.

Scientists around the world have begun to hedge their bets and not count on society’s decarbonizing in time to avoid disruption to the Earth’s climate. Enter a once-taboo topic shunned by greens and governments alike — geoengineering, a suite of suggested technological remedies to solve the climate crisis or at least buy humanity more time to rid its energy and agricultural systems of greenhouse gas emissions.

Is geoengineering necessary? What techniques will be the most successful while minimizing downside risks? And who will answer these questions and begin any needed interventions in the Earth’s climate system?