Curriculum Design for the Anthropocene: Review of Meinhard Doelle & Chris Tollefson, Environmental Law: Cases and Materials, Third Edition

Abstract

The Anthropocene poses a fundamental challenge to the traditional approaches of environmental law, policy, and governance. The rapid maturation of new and innovative ways of studying climate change and sustainability – including the planetary boundaries framework, socio-ecological systems modeling, and the transdisciplinary imagination of “good anthropocenes” – calls into question the relevance of monodisciplinary, statist, static, and siloed understandings of environmental law. In this article I draw out the Anthropocene’s implications for environmental law by critically assessing the third edition of Canada’s leading environmental law casebook, Environmental Law: Cases and Materials, written and edited by Meinhard Doelle and Chris Tollefson. I argue that the shortcomings of this otherwise impressive text reflect the limitations of traditional environmental law scholarship and pedagogy more generally, particularly its insufficient attention to Earth-system dynamics, the underrepresentation of society’s most marginal members, an uncritical acceptance of the neoliberal norm of perpetual economic growth, and the failure to advance our understanding of how to rapidly enact and implement transformative laws and policies capable of enhancing socio-ecological resilience and sustainability. I conclude by sketching a new approach that integrates teaching and research and imagines what it might mean to think like an Anthropocene lawyer.