Remembering our roots.

• Author: Tolliver, Corey
• Position: EDITOR'S NOTE

With tattered Bluebook in hand, I poured through a quite brilliant interpretation of the Clean Water Act by the faint glow of an old yellow lamp that must have illuminated long nights for many editors before me. The bulb flickered for a moment and went out. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, strangely, some things became clear. Outside my window the moon cast its brilliant gaze upon Tryon Creek's forest. Even in the grip of the English Ivy that chokes many of these trees, the forest looked peaceful and beckoned me out, away from the rigors of comma placement and vague pronouns. Amongst the trees I began to view the forest in a different light. For the first time my gaze was drawn to the trees themselves. They are beautiful, and so too is this forest. Sometimes, to answer the great call of our time, we must simply change our perspective. Turn off the lights. Remember why we are here. After all, it's a living environment we are trying to understand, not simply a statute we are interpreting.

In keeping with Lewis & Clark Law School's great tradition of creative, avant-garde scholarship, Environmental Law seeks to broaden the discussion. Environmental Law began thirty-seven years ago with big ideas about how and why we should protect the environment. We published pieces of many varieties--from policy to philosophy, to science and law--and from a diverse group of authors--politicians, academics, scientists, and lawyers among them. While Environmental Law will continue to be the first place the legal community turns to monitor...