ELC 2025, Resist, Restore, Reimagine: Essays from the Environmental Law Collaborative
In July 2025, participants at the Environmental Law Collaborative (ELC) gathered to engage in what we initially called “Blue Sky Thinking in a Red Sky World.” The theme originated from Gus Speth’s searing 2005 book, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, the prologue for which warns: “A global crisis has unfolded quickly, and, as in classic Greek tragedy, we have been told what the future may hold, but so far we seem unable to step from the path to disaster that has been mapped out for us. The last act is about to begin.” Our hope was that the ELC’s participants would (unlike so many tragic Greek actors) be willing to acknowledge the realities of the ongoing environmental crises (and our own roles in it), and then to think creatively, strategically, and even optimistically about how we might chart a different course and defy the fates. Although the world looks especially bleak today, this creative, strategic, and optimistic vision has motivated the ELC for nearly 15 years.
The Environmental Law Collaborative (ELC) comprises a rotating group of law professors who assemble every other year to think, talk, and write about an important and intriguing theme in environmental law. The goals of this meeting are both scholarly and practical, as ELC seeks to bring together scholars with disparate areas of experience and expertise to collectively engage the complex and potentially existential environmental challenges that define our time, with the ultimate goal of contributing to positive change in our shared world. That same vision led us into our 2025 meeting.
We began planning the event well before the November 2024 election—when it was easier for most of us to imagine a future of blue skies and environmental progress—but we wanted to keep the focus as much as possible on pathways towards progress. We divided the discussion into six sessions. We hoped that the first, 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. The following four sessions explored different questions about and strategies towards a more sustainable future. Should we double-down on existing laws and practices or chart wholly new directions? Do sub-federal and international laws provide solutions that U.S. federal law no longer does? Is the “abundance movement” the solution we’ve been waiting for, or should societies embrace degrowth? And, above all, how can we regain some of the momentum towards justice and democracy during this fraught time of authoritarianism, violent rhetoric and violent deeds, and marginalization of many members of society?
The discussions were enlightening, sobering, energizing, inspiring, and sometimes very funny. The event closed with the “Blue Sky Brainstorm,” where participants reflected on the ideas that resonated most with them. Many of the blogs in this series touch on the range of subjects we covered, including the MAHA (make America Healthy Again) movement, monopoly control, the power of local governments, reviving international law, encouraging belonging, and reconceiving our roles as educators and communicators.
At the end of our gathering, we discussed whether the “Red Sky/Blue Sky” theme accurately described our work. While some participants believed it did, others were unsure about the theme’s meaning. Was it a reference to wildfires, the burning planet, environmental degradation? (To a large degree, yes, yes, and yes.) Did it refer more figuratively 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. (Actually, no.) Our overarching goal was to find hope and pathways forward amidst this moment of deep worry and despair. For some of us, that means resisting the actions, the actors, and the systems that have left so many of us feeling hopeless as we watch our world in turmoil, our neighbors suffer, and our planet destroyed. For some of us, hope comes from engaging in acts of restoration—rebuilding our communities, our societies, our institutions, and even those foundational constitutional principles that we want to believe serve as constants in governmental decisionmaking. For others, finding hope and ways forward means not just resisting and restoring (although both are essential), but also re-imagining 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 flourish as a society.
That does not mean the blogs in this series are necessarily all optimistic, however. If we have learned anything from Greek tragedies, the first lesson is to be honest about the risks we face, whether they arise in populism, politics, economics, or science. The second is to recognize that the solutions are rarely simple, followed closely by the third lesson, which is that we need to retrain ourselves to recognize that problems are often opportunities. Only by directly engaging the complex contours of our reality can we move forward—through resistance, restoration, and reimagining—with our individual and collective efforts to turn the dauntingly red skies of today’s burning world into the hopeful blue skies of the future.
