Supplemental Materials may be passed out in class or cited for reference and reading. If you choose the paper option, you must clear a topic and outline with me by September 30. I reserve the right to reward those who participate outstandingly in class with bonus points on the exam. Likewise, I reserve the right to deduct points in cases of no participation or repeated absences. This tension between knowledge and narrative, a tension that can be fruitful or destructive, lies at the heart of environmental lawmaking.
Humans agree to make laws for many reasons.
In a democratic society, laws are presumed to be based on knowledge, rather than on power or caprice. Knowledge in the framework of the law is meant to achieve a policy. If we, as Americans, have decided to protect our environment, we decide to do so on the basis of knowledge about what harms the environment. Laws embody knowledge, but they exist as narrative. The event of the Exxon Valdez disaster in the Prince William Sound in March 1989 became, in part, the narrative of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.