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This chapter presents an overview of the five chapters (Chapter 2-6) in Part I of the book. It discusses the economic models that study the link between economic growth and the environment. It focuses on a class of models in which economic activities lead to environmental degradation, and through this economic activity negatively affects the utility of households or the production activities of firms.

This chapter describes scientific knowledge concerning greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the change in global average surface temperature. It considers the climate system of the Earth is in terms of its global energy balance using so-called energy balance models (EBM).

This book examines standardized form contracts, also known as boilerplate. In the past, “contract” was interpreted as a bargained-for exchange transaction between two parties who each consent to the exchange. Bargained-for exchange represents contract in a world of voluntary agreement—World A (for Agreement). Standardized form contracts, on the other hand, belong to World B (for Boilerplate). World B doesn't fit the theory, the rationale, of contract law. This book explores judicial oversight of boilerplate through the legal doctrines of unconscionability and voidness as against public policy, among others. It also considers the problem of boilerplate rights deletion schemes as well as attempts to bring such schemes under the aegis of traditional contract theories. This chapter provides an overview of worlds A and B as well as varieties of World B contracts, boilerplate as a method of contract formation, and two problems arising from boilerplate: normative degradation and democratic degradation.

This chapter examines whether the standard judicial oversight of contract law could be improved to do a better job of alleviating normative and democratic degradation. It first considers whether boilerplate rights deletion schemes are “sturdy indefensibles” and explains why it would be very difficult to enhance the ability of the standard oversight measures of traditional contract law. It then discusses possible improvements to other traditional methods of oversight, focusing in particular on the suggestions of Robert Hillman and Omri Ben-Shahar. It also explores the dilemma that arises when rights deletion is disallowed and concludes with the argument that current oversight measures might be improved by reducing the reliance on sweeping inferences based on assumptions and producing more empirical data that courts would actually take into account.

The environment has emerged as a key issue in global politics since the early 1970s, and the issues that comprise the ‘environmental crisis’ are widely regarded to have had significant impacts on international politics. At the same time, the international society or English School of International Relations tradition has rarely had much explicit to say regarding the implications of environmental degradation for International Relations, although at a first look, it is a surprise that English School authors have not looked to environmental politics for sources of support for their arguments. This chapter attempts to elaborate how such an engagement between international environmental politics and the English School might develop. It begins with an elaboration of Hedley Bull's (1977) passage on the environment in The Anarchical Society, and then proceeds through a discussion of contemporary accounts of ‘global environmental governance’, in terms of programmatic reform, international regimes, multilevel governance, deterritorialization, and corporate governance and governance from below. The conclusion reached is that despite a superficial attraction, discussions of global environmental governance undermine the image of international society in English School accounts in two principal ways: first, they show that thinking about international society (its norms, the tensions and conversation between the three traditions in English School, and so on) is limited by the lack of understanding of the specifically capitalist character of the states‐system; and second, they show that the image given in Bull – that any alternatives to the states‐system tend to founder on the claim that states will not voluntarily cede their authority – is misplaced, for practices of global governance are emerging in the environmental field that operate outside the states‐system but where states have never given permission in the manner envisaged by Bull and others to be necessary.

Koos Neefjes of Oxfam takes turmoil and instability as his starting point. How will carefully crafted sustainability and justice principles fare in zones of conflict? How can measurements of environmental stock and flow be made under conditions of war or even genocide? Neefjes implies that they cannot, and he focuses instead on the causes of conflicts and the role that environmental factors might play in them. After examining a number of cases drawn from Africa he concludes that environmental degradation and resource distribution play an increasingly important role in conflicts, and that supporting local use and management of resources is of paramount importance.

Identifies four critical dimensions of inequality that are relevant to any consideration of environment and resource degradation: first, the unequal distribution of historical responsibilities for environmental change, notably climate change; second, the fact that global changes have unequal impacts on different regions and peoples of the world; third, the degree to which inequalities of interest promote different environmentalist agendas; fourth, the extent to which distributive problems lie at the heart of the failure to undertake effective and concerted action of the type envisaged at 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Begins by exploring the way in which environmental problems are constructed, both through structural processes, such as trade and technology transfer, and through attachment to cultural ‘models’ of development, disseminated on television screens and illustrated by new patterns of consumption. This social construction of environmental problems forms the backcloth against which the chapter analyses global inequality and the effects of economic globalization on the environment.

Selection in complex and structured environments is likely to cause the divergence of differently adapted lines. This will lead to a diverse array of specialized types, or to one or a few broad generalists, or to some intermediate situation. The first section in this chapter is called GxE and details the ecogenetic landscape; the magnitude of GxE; inconsistency and responsiveness; the genetic correlation in relation to environmental variance; the outcome of selection in different environments; stability and responsiveness; and the evolution of stability and responsiveness. The second section is about specialization and generalization, and details niche separation; the cost of adaptation; divergent specialization; sources of antagonism: functional interference; sources of antagonism: mutational degradation; and the consequences of interference and degradation. It also gives an experimental adaptive radiation regarding pseudomonas and an historical adaptive radiation concerning anolis. The third section called Opportunities in space, obligations in time, explains simple environments; complex environments; the cost of adaptation in complex environments; structured environments; the outcome of selection in structured environments; fluctuating fitness; and the outcome of selection in variable environments. The final section is called Local adaptation and details the precision of local adaptation and gives reciprocal transplant experiments.

This chapter examines the normative degradation caused by the apparent lack of consent to boilerplate. It first considers the varieties of nonconsent to which consent is contrasted, including coercion and its related conceptions of force and duress; fraud, with its allied notions of misrepresentation and deception; and sheer ignorance. It then discusses problematic consent, focusing on situations involving “information asymmetry” and heuristic biases. It also explores strategies of assimilating World B to consent, with particular emphasis on the devolution of voluntary agreement. The chapter shows that consent is problematic even when recipients click a box that says “I agree,” because it remains unclear what they could actually be agreeing to.

This chapter focuses on the democratic degradation that may be caused by the apparent replacement of the law of the state with the “law” of the firm when boilerplate is deployed in mass markets. It considers mass-market boilerplate rights deletion schemes and how the widespread use of boilerplate causes democratic degradation; for example, it threatens the distinction between public and private ordering, undermines the rule of law, and erases legal rights. The chapter also examines private law, the main legal infrastructure of the liberal notion of private ordering, and copycat boilerplate. Finally, it discusses technological protection measures (TPMs) and their implications for legal infrastructure, along with measures that might help to make TPMs less problematic from the point of view of the rule of law.

This chapter argues that the world's poor are the ones harmed the most by environmental degradation. This holds true because the poor are more directly dependent on local natural resources and are unable to afford a buffer from direct environmental harm. Several reasons why sustainable development has been such an elusive goal are discussed.

Science rarely allows its subject matter to show its ability to self-determine its actions. This chapter describes a method for quantifying the portion of variability in human behavior due to self-determination (or behavioral freedom of the will). The results of several programs of research reveal that humans often self-determine sizeable portions of their actions in a variety of domains. The problems of the 21st century are often group problems (e.g., environmental degradation) which humans might not be able to control volitionally.

Designer plants for environmental sensing and remediation are currently being produced in research labs. One such plant is designed to detect and report the presence of explosives, such as TNT, which is used in landmines. Transgenic plants could someday be used to pinpoint the exact location of buried landmines. Along with phytosensing is the cleansing of soil environments by plants or phytoremediation. Research is being conducted for the detection and phytoremediation of explosives, heavy metals, and other pollutants. Plants could also be used to produce products that currently come from petroleum, such as plastics and biofuels. Many of the future uses of transgenic plants will be specifically designed to correct environmental problems and recover endangered species. For example, the American chestnut, which has been decimated by disease, could be made blight-resistant by a single transgene, allowing it to recover its dominance in the Appalachian Mountains.