The Internet is abuzz this afternoon with news a federal judge in Portland sentenced a former Earth Liberation Front activist to read two books along with a five-year prison stint.
One of those books (invariably the one getting all the attention) is David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell’s books are notoriously polarizing—some people swear by them, others deride the work as superficial. (I personally enjoyed this specious story he told at The Moth some years back.)
But potentially more relevant to Portlanders is the other book US District Court Judge Ann Aiken sentenced Rebecca Rubin to read: Nature’s Trust by University of Oregon law professor Mary Wood.
Wood advocates use of the so-called “public trust doctrine” to force governments to act in the interest of the environment. Environmental protection laws have proven weak, she says, but there are well-established legal precedents that natural resources must be protected for the public good.
And Portlanders may get a chance to vote on Wood’s opinion this year. As the Mercury’s reported, her work—the legal theories detailed in Nature’s Trust—serve as a foundation for an initiative petition that would formerly establish a public trust around the city’s water supply. The arrangement, proponents say, would give citizens important new leverage. The campaign, called the Cascadian Public Trust Initiative, hopes to put the matter before voters in November.
Ugh. Malcolm Gladwell is the worst.
I finally read the initiative. The biggest thing that I would be concerned about is the broad language used about ecosystem and natural communities rights to exist and flourish, for example, combined with the right of any citizen to sue on their own behalf or behalf of the ecosystem and awarding them attorney fees.
Seems like it would set up a situation where any sort of project the city would propose or even authorize a private party to do that would tangentially affect a water resource could be challenged on the grounds that it doesn’t promote the “flourishing” of the ecosystem. And the city would be bogged down in expensive lawsuits for every project with very little downside to the party suing to stop the project.
^^ Also try to define, measure, and gather base line data for a”flourishing” ecosystem.
But what I really wanted to say is that if the judge wants to punish those folks, a daily reading from “Eat, Love, Pray” should be added to the literature cocktail.
I’m glad she finally is going to jail.
As for using the Law to further ones’ environment beliefs, I am reminded of my moms place, outside of Grants Pass, where winter mountain water run-off ran through the property and when mom was trying to clear brush and small trees from the property, a neighbor made the argument that it would harm the fish that used the ‘stream’. Let alone there never was any fish to speak of. Ever.