WELCOME AND OPENING OF THE 43RD CUSLI ANNUAL CONFERENCE.

• Author: Petras, Stephen J., Jr.
• Position: Proceedings of the 43rd Canada-United States Law Institute Annual Conference: Can the United States and Canada Cooperate on Climate Change?

Speaker: Stephen J. Petras Jr.

DEAN SCHARF: All right. Good morning, everybody, if you will take your seats. We will go ahead and get started. Okay.

Well, hello, everybody. If you don't know me, I am Michael Scharf. I am the Co-dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law. We are one of the two partnership schools along with Western Ontario that make up the Canada-US Law Institute, and you are going to meet today several of the people whose time and energy is well spent putting together this conference and the other activities of the center.

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to a spring day in Cleveland as we look out the window and see the snow falling here in the beautiful botanical garden. And one of the things I do tell students when I am recruiting from Arizona and California to come to Cleveland, I say, you know, in Cleveland when it is cold, we just cross the street, and we go to Costa Rica.

And that's because the Botanical Garden has a giant Costa Rica biosphere, and you are invited today--the building is completely closed off except for you, and you all are invited at any time to explore the Madagascar spiny desert, the Costa Rica biosphere, and the theme that they are building today is Butterflies, and you will see many butterflies in there.

Now, butterflies are not going to exist much longer if international global climate change continues unabated. And that's the real reason we are all here at the conference today to talk about the what the two countries, Canada and the United States, can do to try to hold off climate change and to respond to its ravaging effects in both countries and around the world.

We have an amazing panel set up for you today. It is going to be a fantastic conference today. And one of the most important things about this conference is the ability for people to network, to get to know each other, you get to know Canadians, Americans, business people, government people, academics, we are all here sharing one experience.

So without further ado, I will ring Henry King's famous bell that has been rung for 43 years at the start of every Canada-US Law Institute and call the conference to order.

(Bell being rung.)

Dean SCHARF: Okay. Let me turn things over to Steve Petras.

MR. PETRAS: Thank you, Michael.

Thank you for opening our 43rd Annual Conference of the Canada-United States Law Institute. Welcome, everyone, here to the Botanical Garden, a perfect setting for a discussion on climate change

So what...