Professor Wood alerts the audience to the urgency of global warming and discuss the role of environmental law in bringing about necessary changes. She explains why our regulatory system ignored this problem for too long and offers a property-based perspective to frame government's responsibility in confronting climate crisis.

Mary Christina Wood is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and Morse Center for Law and Politics Resident Scholar (2006-07) at the University of Oregon School of Law, where she teaches natural resources law, federal Indian law, public lands law, wildlife law, hazardous waste law and property law. She is the Founding Director of the school's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program. Professor Wood is currently working on an article applying public trust theory to global warming, seeking to hold the federal government accountable as a sovereign cotenant trustee of the global atmosphere. She is also working on a book entitled "Nature's Trust: A Legal Paradigm for Protecting Land and Natural Resources for Future Generations."

Our first question will be asked by Ernie Niemi, Vice President & Economist of ECONorthwest.