The Worst Case and the Worst Example: An Agenda for Any Young Lawyer Who Wants to Save the World from Climate Chaos

Abstract

Wherever you turn with regard to climate change, you'll hear about the worst, and the worst of the worst, and the worst that will happen after that. Young lawyers should consider climate change a career opportunity. We suggest a personal strategy: (I) Honoring Knowledge and Learning; (II) Protecting Your Institutions and Loving Your Country; (III) Planning and Conducting Your Personal War on Bad Law; and (IV) Rejecting Defeatism and Impossibility Theorems.

Impossible problems can only succumb to implacable convictions. Humans created the conditions for this climate change catastrophe. Perhaps they can stumble into ultimate triumph.

Keywords: climate change, environmental law, practice of law, courts, agencies, Congress, public policy, science, pessimism, optimism