Hothouse Earth

Hothouse Earth

By Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment at Vermont Law and Graduate SchoolNewsEducationGovernment
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Hothouse Earth episodes

  • A Community Recap of the Suncor Energy v Boulder Supreme Court Oral Arguments

    An excerpt of a special community conversation about the oral argument in Suncor Energy v County Commissioners of Boulder County, which was held a few days after oral arguments in the case were held at the US Supreme Court. The case considers the defendant oil companies’ appeal of a decision for the Colorado Supreme Court, which allowed Boulder’s climate nuisance case against those companies to go forward. We are sharing panel’s introductory remarks and their final takeaways. Click here to hear the full conversation and the Q and A afterwards.

    30 min
  • Federal Climate Policy’s Demolition and Reconstruction, with Sean Donahue
    As part of the 2026 Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series, VLGS summer faculty and environmental law expert @Sean Donahue, a partner at Donahue, Goldberg, Herzog and Davidson, discusses federal environmental policy under the second Trump administration. In this podcast replay of his lecture, “Federal Climate Policy: Demolition and Reconstruction,” he provides a history of the profound changes in environmental legislation and policy over the past decade, contrasts the current Trump administration's policy efforts with those of the first Trump administration, and examines the ongoing demolition of climate policy at the federal level. He also discusses possible policy directions for environmental progress despite these challenges.
    44 min
  • Looking Back and Looking Forward: VLGS Environmental Leaders Reflect on a 50-Year Legacy
    As part of the VLGS's celebration of its 50th commencement year, the Environmental Law Center (ELC) gathered past and present VLGS environmental leaders to participate in a roundtable discussion reflecting on VLGS’s record of leadership in environmental law and policy, reckoning with unmet challenges, and looking ahead to the future of the field. The panel featured Gus Speth, Patrick Parenteau, Tamara Toles O’Laughlin JD/MELP’09, Lindi Mutius Widell JD’08, and Jennifer Rushlow. The panel was moderated by ELC Director Christophe Courchesne and David Mears JD'91.
    37 min
  • Environmental Advocacy and Defamation in the SLAPP Era
    As part of the 2026 Hot Topics in Environmental Law lecture series, Professor Jared Carter JD’09, Vermont Law and Graduate School, and Heather Murray, Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic, discuss how defamation and related claims, often constituting Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP), have recently been used as a sword to attempt to silence environmental advocacy organizations and journalists, and the potential defenses provided by state anti-SLAPP laws.
    44 min
  • The Eras and Future of Environmental Law with Professor Alejandro Camacho
    Christophe Courchesne, director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law and Graduate School, speaks with Alejandro Camacho, professor of law at UCLA School of Law. Camacho’s latest book with Brigham Daniels, Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of US Environmental Law, traces the history of U.S. environmental law from colonization to the present, examining five distinct areas, highlighting the tension between idealists and pragmatists, and offering lessons for contemporary challenges like climate change.
    42 min
  • Breaking Down EPA's International Role in the Trump Era

    On the latest episode, Pat Parenteau, Professor of Law Emeritus and Senior Fellow for Climate Policy at the Environmental Law Center, joins Rachel Westrate and Terrence Neal, Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Parenteau Climate Action Fellows, to discuss EPA's international role, past and present. They discuss the EPA's longtime role in international environmental cooperation, the current Administration's unprecedented disengagement from international agreements and forums, and the prospects for law students to launch careers in international environmental law. Both Rachel and Terrence come to VLGS from EPA, where they worked on international law and policy issues during the Biden Administration and the early days of the second Trump Administration.

    45 min
  • Environmental Injustice, Legacy Pollution and the Path Forward

    Our host, Lindi von Mutius JD'08, visiting professor of law at Vermont Law and Graduate School, Class of 1946 Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College, and inaugural director of the Center for Environmental Networks, chats with Chandra Taylor-Sawyer, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). She is also SELC's Environmental Justice Initiative leader, which has produced "Plantations to Pollution: Black Communities, Legacy Pollution, and the Path Forward," a multimedia storytelling series following the throughline from slavery to pollution—revealing how Black communities have borne environmental injustices for generations and continue to demand the healthy present and future they deserve.

    34 min
  • Disaster Law and the Environment
    Natural and man-made disasters are an important and increasingly relevant topic for us all. World-renowned expert Dr. Kirsten Bookmiller, professor in the Department of Government, Law, and International Relations and a faculty associate with the Center for Disaster Research and Education at Millersville University, discusses the complex impact of disasters on every level, including human rights, migration, and displacement, and the need for robust interdisciplinary frameworks for disaster law.
    46 min
  • Hot Topics - Federal Environmental Law in Trump II
    As part of the 2025 Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series, Sean Donahue, partner at Donahue, Goldberg & Herzog, and Bob Percival, director of the Environmental Law Program and the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, discuss recent Supreme Court decisions and the state of environmental law during the second Trump administration.
    48 min

About Hothouse Earth

From the publisher's feed

With environmental crises reaching a critical tipping point, we find ourselves sprinting to keep up with fast-changing environmental law and policy developments like regulatory rollbacks and…