Climate Change, Public Health, and the Law

Climate Change, Public Health, and the Law provides the first comprehensive explication of the dynamic interactions between climate change, public health law, and environmental law, both in the United States and internationally. Responding to climate change and achieving public health protections each require the coordination of the decisions and behavior of large numbers of people. However, they also involve interventions that risk compromising individual rights. The challenges involved in coordinating large-scale responses to public health threats and protecting against the invasion of rights, makes the law indispensable to both of these agendas. Written for the benefit of public health and environmental law professionals and policymakers in the United States and in the international public health sector, this volume focuses on the legal components of pursuing public health goals in the midst of a changing climate. It will help facilitate efforts to develop, improve, and carry out policy responses at the international, federal, state, and local levels.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Introduction and overview Michael Burger and Justin Gundlach; 2. Duty to protect public health from the impacts of climate change Michael Burger; 3. Public health sector's challenges and responses Jill Krueger and Colleen Healy Boufides; Part II. Cross-Cutting Issues: 4. Government speech and the first amendment: what the government may say about climate change and public health risks David C. Vladeck; 5. Disease surveillance Jason Smith and Chandra Ganesh; 6. The built environment Justin Gundlach and Jennifer Klein; Part III. Impacts and Interventions: 7. Heat Sara Hoverter; 8. Extreme coastal storm events, sea level rise, storm surge, and ocean acidification as public health threats Robin Kundis Craig; 9. Infectious disease Lindsay F. Wiley; 10. Food security and food sovereignty in climate change adaptation Margot Pollans; 11. Migration Maxine Burkett; Part IV. Interplay with International and Domestic Environmental Law: 12. International impacts and responses William Onzivu; 13. How existing environmental laws respond to climate change and its mitigation Justin Gundlach; 14. Incorporating public health assessments into climate change action Jessica Wentz.

This book is primarily for the benefit of public health and environmental law professionals as well as policymakers in the United States and in the international public health sector. It will facilitate efforts to develop, improve, and carry out policy responses at the international, federal, state, and local levels.

Michael Burger is Associate Research Scholar at Columbia Law School and Staff Attorney at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He is a regular source of national media outlets, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and National Public Radio. His article for the Ecology Law Review won the inaugural Penny Pether Award for Law and Language Scholarship. He currently serves as the Chair of the New York City Bar Association International Environmental Law Committee.
Justin Gundlach is Associate Research Scholar at Columbia Law School and Staff Attorney at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He has worked on cutting-edge health, energy, and environmental law issues. In addition to his academic publications on these topics in the Energy Law Journal, the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, Ecology Law Quarterly and elsewhere, he has also written multiple amicus briefs addressing them in cases before the US Supreme Court and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.