Blue sky thinking in a red sky world

• Pages: 10251-10284
• Date: 01 May 2026
• Published date: 01 May 2026
• Author: Laurie Jamile Beyranevand,Rebecca Bratspies,Camila Bustos,Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa,Sarah Fox,Josh Galperin,Keith H. Hirokawa,Sarah Matsumoto,Anthony Moffa,Laura Mott,Jessica Owley,Gabriel Pacyniak,Margot J. Pollans,Melissa Powers,Paul Rink,Kristen van de Biezenbos,Leehi Yona
• Subject Matter: Derecho del Medio Ambiente

MAY/JUNE 2026 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 56 ELR 10251

BLUE SKY THINKING

IN A RED SKY WORLD

by Laurie Jamile Beyranevand, Rebecca Bratspies, Camila Bustos,

Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa, Sarah Fox, Josh Galperin, Keith H. Hirokawa,

Sarah Matsumoto, Anthony Moffa, Laura Mott, Jessica Owley, Gabriel Pacyniak,

Margot J. Pollans, Melissa Powers, Paul Rink, Kristen van de Biezenbos, and Leehi Yona

The authors are members of the 2025 Environmental Law Collaborative.

I. Resist, Restore, Reimagine: Essays From

the Environmental Law Collaborative

e Environmental Law Collaborative (ELC) comprises

a rotating group of law professors who assemble every

other year to think, ta lk, and write about an important

and intriguing theme in environmental law. e goals of

this meeting are both sc holarly and practical, as EL C seeks

to bring together scholars with disparate a reas of experi-

ence and expertise to collect ively enga ge the complex and

potentially existentia l environmental challenges th at dene

our time, with the ultimate goa l of contributing to positive

change in our shared world.

In July 2025, participants gathered to engage in what we

initially cal led “Blue Sky inking in a Red Sky World.”

e theme originated from Gus Speth’s searing 200 4 book,

Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global

Environment, the prologue for which warns: “A global cri-

sis has unfolded quickly, and, as in classic Greek tragedy,

we have been told what the future may hold, but so far we

In 2004, visionary environmental leader Gus Speth’s book Red Sky at Morning warned that “[a] global crisis

has unfolded quickly . . . but so far we seem unable to step from the path to disaster.” More than 20 years

later, we have made great gains, but the fundamental transition Speth envisioned did not come to pass, and

global environmental deterioration continues to intensify at an alarming pace. Approaching Speth’s “red

sky world” with “blue sky thinking,” members of the 2025 Environmental Law Collaborative explored new

strategies for a more sustainable future. This latest in a biannual series of essays covers a wide range of top-

ics, including the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement, monopoly control, the power of local

government, reviving international law, encouraging belonging, technology, and more.

SUMMARYSUMMARY

seem unable to step from the path to disaster that has been

mapped out for us.”1

Our hope was that the ELC’s participants would

(unlike so many tragic Greek actors) be willing to

acknowledge the realities of the ongoing environmen-

tal crises (and our own roles in it), and then to think

creatively, strategically, and even optimistically about

how we might chart a dierent course and def y the fates.

Althoug h the world look s especia lly blea k today, this

creative, strategic, and optimistic vision has motivated

the ELC for nearly 15 years.

We began planning the event well before the November

2024 election—when it was easier for most of us to imag-

ine a future of blue skies and environmental progress— but

we wanted to keep the focus as much as possible on path-

ways toward progress. We divided the discussion into six

sessions. We hoped that the rst, our “Red Sky Rant”—in

which participants were invited to discuss their greatest

worries about the current state of politics and the planet—

would act as a sort of catharsis.

e next four sessions explored dierent questions

about and strategies toward a more sustainable future.

Should we double down on existing laws and practices, or

chart wholly new directions? Do sub-federal and interna-

tional laws provide solutions that U.S. federal law no lon-

1. J G. S, R S  M: A   C  

G E 1 (2004) [hereinafter R S  M].

Authors’ Note: Each essay solely represents the views of

its named author(s). Special thanks to Julia Jann, Elisabeth

Haub School of Law at Pace University 2026, who pro-

vided signif‌icant editorial help on this project.

Copyright © 2026 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, https://www.eli.org

56 ELR 10252 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER MAY/JUNE 2026

ger does? Is the “abundance movement” the solution we’ve

been waiting for, or should societies embrace degrowth?

And, above all, how can we rega in some of the momentum

toward justice and democracy during this fraught time of

authoritar ianism, v iolent rhetoric and violent deeds, and

marginalization of many members of society?

e discussions were enlightening, sobering, ener-

gizing, inspiring, and sometimes very funny. e event

closed with the “Blue Sky Brainstorm,” where participants

reected on the ideas that resonated most with them.

Many of the essays in this ser ies touch on the range of sub-

jects we covered, including the MAHA (Make America

Healthy A gain) movement, monopoly control, the power

of local government, reviving international law, encour-

aging belonging, and reconceiving our roles as educators

and commu nicators.

At the end of our gathering, we discussed whether the

“Red Sky/Blue Sky” theme accurately described our work.

While some believed it did, others were unsure about the

theme’s meaning. Was it a reference to wildres, the burn-

ing planet, and environmental degradation? (To a large

degree, yes, yes, and yes.) Did it refer more guratively

to the turmoil, violence, and disruption communities

throughout the globe are experiencing? (Again, yes.) Or

was it a reference to U.S. political divisions and the current

red/blue divide? (Actual ly, no.)

Our overarching goal was to nd hope and pathways

forward amidst this moment of deep worry and despair.

For some of us, that means resisting the actions, t he

actors, and the systems that have left so many of us feel-

ing hopeless as we watch our world in turmoil, our neigh-

bors suer, and our planet deteriorating. For some, hope

comes from engaging in acts of restoration—rebuilding

our communities, our societies, our institutions, and even

the foundat ional constitutiona l principles we w ant to

believe serve as constants in government decisionmaking.

For others, nding hope and ways forward means not just

resisting and restoring (although both are essential), but

also reimagining what a just and healthy society might

look like and contemplating how this moment of crisis

might actually give us the impetus to think more boldly

and creatively about not just how to sustain, but how to

ourish as a society.

at does not mean these essays are necessarily all opti-

mistic, however. If we have learned anything f rom Greek

tragedies, the rst lesson is to be honest about the risks

we face, whether they arise within populism, politics, eco-

nomics, or science. e second is to recognize that the

solutions are rarely simple. Only by directly engaging the

complex contours of our reality can we move forward—

through resistance, restoration, and reimagini ng—with

our individual and collective eorts to turn the dauntingly

red skies of today’s burning world into the hopeful blue

skies of the future.

II. Blue Sky Thinking in a Red Sky World:

The Story of Environmental Law

is section was authored by Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa,

President and Dean, Albany Law School.

Red Sky at Morning tell s a story, and we are its authors.

e plot is driven by human propagation a nd poverty and

even more by a vast and growing world economy. ere is

a beleaguered heroine, Mother Ea rth. e story’s ending

has not yet been written. ere a re two possible outcomes,

one tragic and one not. A global crisi s has unfolded

quickly, and, as in clas sic Greek tragedy, we have been

told what the future may hold, but so far we see m unable

to step from the path to disa ster that has been mapped out

for us. e last act is about to beg in.2

e last act has now begun. We stand at the edge of the

world (now at,3 according to many) staring out across a

seemingly endless red sky at morning. A sk y that sailors say

is a warning of ominous weather.4 A warni ng of a sky lled

with particulate doom. A warning that sailing or, in our

case, living and breathing, is not safe.

More than two decades ago, when visionary

environmental leader Gus Speth oered his prophetic

warning of the impending global crisis—of the red sky at

morning—we had extensive evidence of the intersect ing

impacts of global environmental deterioration and the

primary anthropogenic d rivers of this deterioration. At that

moment, Speth and others oered a reimagining of global

environmental governance—a blue sky vision of how we

could lead ourselves o the disastrous path by embracing

a broader approach to environmental governance that

engaged questions of intersectional social, political, and

economic well-being, that widened the purview of players

to imagine a more inclusive group of environmental

protagonists (e.g., civil society and the private sector), and

that advanced a new vision for how we see ourselves in

relation to our beleaguered planet. e vision was inchoate

but possible, premised on learning from the mistakes of t he

past and embracing a transformative transition in culture

and consciousness.5

Over the decades that followed, we made great ga ins.

e climate justice movement blossomed. Links between

climate change and huma n rights were identied.6 Courts

2. Id.

3. Rob Picheta, e Flat-Earth Conspiracy Is Spreading Around the Globe.

Does It Hide a Darker Core?, CNN (Nov. 18, 2019), https://www.cnn.

com/2019/11/16/us/at-earth-conference-conspiracy-theories-scli-intl.

4. Library of Congress, Question: Is the Old Adage “Red Sky at Night, Sailor’s

Delight. Red Sky in Morning, Sailor’s Warning” True, or Is It Just an Old Wives’

Tale?, https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/meteorology-climatology/

item/is-the-old-adage-red-sky-at-night-sailors-delight-red-sky-in-morning-

sailors-warning-true-or-is-it-just-an-old-wives-tale/.

5. See generally R S  M, supra note 1.

6. See, e.g., Human Rights Council Res. 10/4, Human Rights and Climate

Change (Mar. 25, 2009), https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/HRC/

resolutions/A_HRC_RES_10_4.pdf. See also M W-

S, S R, C C  H R

U I L (2019).

Copyright © 2026 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, https://www.eli.org

MAY/JUNE 2026 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 56 ELR 10253

all over the world began to recognize legal rights7 and

obligations8 with respect to cl imate change, rights of nature,9

and more. Despite notable points of progress, however, the

fundamental tra nsition that Speth envisioned did not come

to pass, and global environmental deterioration continues

to intensify at an alarming pace.

Biodiversity loss is accelerating at unprecedented rates.10

Patterns of deforestation11 and pollution burdens12 (ai r,

water, plastics) persist. And looming over us all is the hars h

reality of unabated anth ropogenic climate change13 a nd the

associated slow- and sudden-onset disasters14 and extreme

events15 that, by now, are inevitable. One by one, we are

surpas sing our pla netar y boundaries16 and n arrowin g the

spaces deemed safe for human existence.

Which is all to say t hat we are now in the midst of

the Greek tragedy of which Speth warned. We live

today in full vision of the political, economic, and

environmental crises that were mapped out for us

decades ago. Only now, the contours of the tragedy are

even more extreme than Speth could have ima gined in

2004. Few could have foreseen the specter of the current

7. See, e.g., Joana Setzer & Catherine Higham, Global Trends in Climate

Change Litigation: 2024 Snapshot (June 2024), https://www.lse.ac.uk/

granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Global-trends-in-climate-

change-litigation-2024-snapshot.pdf.

8. See, e.g., Maria A. Tigre & Margaret Barry, Sabin Center Report Highlights

Key Climate Cases and Litigation emes in 2024 (Jan. 2025), https://

blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2025/01/21/sabin-center-report-

highlights-key-climate-cases-and-litigation-themes-in-2024/.

9. See, e.g., Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, Rights of Na-

ture Law Library, https://www.centerforenvironmentalrights.org/rights-of-

nature-law-library.

10. See, e.g., World Economic Forum, 6 Charts at Show the State of Biodiversity

and Nature Loss—and How We Can Go “Nature Positive” (Oct. 17, 2022),

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/10/nature-loss-biodiversity-wwf/;

World Health Organization, Fact Sheets: Biodiversity (Feb. 18, 2025),

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/biodiversity.

11. See, e.g., Global Forest Watch, Dashboard: Global Primary Forest Loss,

https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/global/ (last visited Mar. 20,

2026).

12. See, e.g., E MD  ., G B  D F

M A P S (GBD MAPS): A G A,

H E I. (2021), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/

PMC9501767/.

13. See, e.g., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Summary

for Policymakers, in C C 2023: S R. C-

  W G I, II  III   S A-

 R   I P  C C

4 (Core Writing Team, Hoesung Lee, and José Romero eds. 2023),

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_SYR_

SPM.pdf (“Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse

gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface tem-

perature reaching 1.1°C above 1850-1900 in 2011-2020.”).

14. See, e.g., Daniel A. Farber, e Intersection of International Disaster Law and

Climate Change Law, 2 Y.B. I’ D L. O 87 (2021), https://

brill.com/view/journals/yido/2/1/article-p87_5.xml.

15. See, e.g., National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Extreme Weather

and Climate Change, https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/extreme-

weather/ (last visited Mar. 20, 2026).

16. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Planetary Boundaries, https://www.stockhol-

mresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html (last visited Mar. 20,

2026).

political administration’s rejection17 of science,18 rollback19

of environmental governance, and denunciation of

tolerance, transpa rency, and participation.

ese are the contours of our contemporary crisis. A cri-

sis where the extreme challenges of global environmental

deterioration meet the calamitous social, politica l, and eco-

nomic challenges of our time to create an absurd ly existen-

tial tragedy of our own ma king. As we stand staring into

the void of what could be our last act, hope seems distant

and joy even more so.

But when the 2025 ELC came together,20 there was

little doubt that despite great fears, frustrations, and

uncertainty, there was a unif ying commitment to resistance

and reimagining. Embracing a plot of resistance and

reimagining means working together to resist the erosion

of our environment and our democracy. It also means

coupling these eorts with a commitment to reimagining

what it would mean to create a world where Mother Earth

is not beleaguered and where all her inhabitants a re able

not merely to survive, but to ourish.21

ese commitments echo the story of environmental

law—a story grounded in optimism a midst adversity and

heralded by protagonists of resistance and positive cha nge.

A story where courageous scientists such as R achel Car-

son melded science with storytelling22 to motivate change

against powerf ul indust rial opposition23; where bold and

persistent leaders such as Wangari Maathai24 overcame

great odds to revolutionize action at the intersection of eco-

nomic progress, social change and environmental protec-

tion25; where environmental law pioneers such as Joe Sax,26

17. See, e.g., Bob Sussman, Defending the Indefensible: Climate Science and

the Trump Era’s Repudiation of the Endangerment Finding, V E’

B (Aug. 7, 2025), https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/

defending-indefensible-climate-science-and-trump-eras-repudiation.

18. Steven Cohen, e Impact of the Trump Administration’s Destruction of

Earth Observation Science, C. S. P. S. (June 30, 2025),

https://sps.columbia.edu/news/impact-trump-administrations-destruction-

earth-observation-science.

19. Press Release, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), EPA Launches

Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History (Mar. 12, 2025), https://www.

epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history.

20. See Pace University, “Blue Sky inking in a Red Sky World”: Environmental

Law Scholars Chart a Path Forward (July 29, 2025), https://www.pace.edu/

news/blue-sky-thinking-red-sky-world-environmental-law-scholars-chart-

path-forward.

21. See, e.g., Xavier Symons & Tyler VanderWeele, Aristotelian Flourishing and

Contemporary Philosophical eories of Wellbeing, 25 J. H S. no.

26 (2024), https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-024-00723-0

(providing a discussion of the Aristotelian idea of ourishing). See also W-

 M. T, F   A  C C (Cornell

Univ. Press 2024).

22. See, e.g., Natural Resources Defense Council, Explainer: e Story of Silent

Spring (Aug. 13, 2015), https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring.

23. See, e.g., Mark Stoll, Industrial and Agricultural Interests Fight Back, in R-

 C’ S S, A B T C  W (En-

vironment and Society Portal 2020), https://www.environmentandsociety.

org/exhibitions/rachel-carsons-silent-spring/industrial-and-agricultural-

interests-ght-back.

24. See, e.g., e Goldman Environmental Prize, e Legacy of Wangari

Maathai (Dec. 1, 2021), https://www.goldmanprize.org/blog/the-legacy-

of-wangari-maathai/.

25. See, e.g., Green Belt Movement, Home Page, https://www.greenbeltmove-

ment.org (last visited Mar. 20, 2026).

26. See, e.g., Fred Krupp, e Legacy of Professor Joe Sax, 4 M. J. E’ 

A. L. 179 (2014), https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.

cgi?article=1035&context=mjeal.

Copyright © 2026 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, https://www.eli.org