By the end of the 15th century, between 40 and 80 million people are thought to have been living in the Americas. Many of them burned trees to make room for crops, leaving behind charcoal deposits that have been found in the soils of Mexico, Nicaragua... Read More

Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law has prepared a Compilation of International Authorities Supporting Specific Measures to Combat Climate Change . The document has been compiled to show the authority found for various specific measures... Read More

Prior posts, occasionally with tongue planted firmly in cheek, have noted that human impact on carbon loading in the atmosphere goes back to well before the industrial era. A recent assessment has calculated that over the eight millennia before 1850... Read More

The Amazon has long been conceived of as a CO2 sink because of its mass of vegetation. Researchers are now concerned that drought and deforestation may make it a net emitter. Because of regular measurements of about 100,000 trees, researchers estimate... Read More

By Malcolm Dowden, Solicitor and Environmental Law Consultant Despite widespread disappointment at the outcome of last year’s climate change summit in Copenhagen, quiet but significant progress has been made on issues such as reducing emissions... Read More