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Publication Date

6-10-2024

Abstract

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, celebrated the grassroots environmental movement that began in the ‘60s and early ‘70s and ushered in the creation of a new legal framework for controlling pollution and addressing environmental concerns in the United States. However, more than fifty years later, some experts fear that the environmental progress achieved during the ‘70s and ‘80s has begun to stall as the United States and other nations experience broad economic hardship and must shift their focus to more immediate concerns. Therefore, even as the damaging effects of climate change threaten communities across the globe, the next major environmental movement is unlikely to happen at the federal or global level. Instead, state and local citizens and governments must address the increasing impacts of climate change by exploring short- and long-term approaches to land use planning and environmental regulation to prepare communities to be resilient to coming changes. This Article attempts to consolidate the various land use tools, such as planning, zoning, sustainable and green development, eminent domain, inverse condemnation, nuisance law, renewable energy incentives, and smart cities, which can help communities and individuals deal with past, current, and future impacts from climate change. These more localized tools present greater opportunities to prepare for climate change and continuing disasters, address systemic inequalities and disruptive histories, and build or rebuild resilient communities through mitigation and adaptation. This Article suggests that the principle of social ecological resilience is an effective concept to deal with climate change when our ecosystems are prone to disruption, promoting a land use system that manages risk through mitigation and adaptation. By incorporating principles of social-ecological resilience, sustainability, and adaptation into the circle of disaster risk management and other regulatory responses, communities can better prepare for the future while also establishing equitable laws and policies. The Article continues by assessing local land use concepts that are available to mitigate and adapt to climate change at the community level. While local governments have a vital role in establishing mitigation and adaptation strategies through a variety of land use regulations and policymaking, the participation of all citizens who live and work in the community––particularly the vulnerable ones––is also essential for creating planning and governance strategies that further a community’s resilience goals. This inclusive, community-wide approach provides a framework for assessing emergency response strategies at the local level, analyzing various compensation models to spread risks following a disaster, and facilitating cohesive and effective rebuilding efforts. Bearing all these tools in mind, this Article concludes that adaptive governance informed by resilience thinking at the local level will help build (and rebuild) communities capable of withstanding whatever the future holds.

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