ELC 2025: Blue Sky Thinking in a Red Sky World: The Story of Environmental Law by Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa
“Red Sky at Morning tells a story, and we are its authors. The plot is driven by human propagation and poverty and even more by a vast and growing world economy. There is a beleaguered heroine, Mother Earth. The story’s ending has not yet been written. There are two possible outcomes, one tragic and one not. 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.” James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning 1 (2004).
The last act has now begun. We stand at the edge of the world (flat now, according to many) staring out across a seemingly endless red sky at morning. A sky that sailors say is a warning of ominous weather. A warning of a sky filled with particulate doom. A warning that sailing or, in our case, living and breathing, is not safe.
More than two decades ago, when visionary environmental leader Gus Speth offered his prophetic warning of the impending global crisis – of the red sky at morning – we had extensive evidence of the intersecting impacts of global environmental deterioration and the primary anthropogenic drivers of this deterioration. At that moment, Speth and others offered a reimagining of global environmental governance – a blue-sky vision of how we could lead ourselves off the disastrous path by embracing a broader vision of environmental governance that engaged questions of intersectional social, political, and economic well-being, that widened the purview of players to imagine a more inclusive group of environmental protagonists (e.g., civil society and the private sector), and that advanced a new vision for how we see ourselves in relation to our beleaguered planet. The vision was inchoate but possible, premised on learning from the mistakes of the past and embracing a transformative transition in culture and consciousness.
Over the decades that followed, we made great gains. The climate justice movement blossomed. Links between climate change and human rights were identified. Courts all over the world have begun to recognize legal rights and obligations with respect to climate change, rights of nature, and more. Despite notable points of progress, however, the fundamental transition that Speth envisioned did not come to pass and global environmental deterioration continues to intensify. Biodiversity loss is accelerating at unprecedented rates. Patterns of deforestation and pollution burdens (air, water, plastics) persist. And looming over us all is the harsh reality of unabated anthropogenic climate change and the associated slow- and sudden-onset disasters and extreme events that, by now, are inevitable. One by one, we are surpassing our planetary boundaries and narrowing the spaces deemed safe for human existence.
Which is all to say that we are now in the midst of the Greek tragedy of which Speth warned. We live today in full vision of the political, economic, and environmental crises that were mapped out before us decades ago. Only now, the contours of the tragedy are even more extreme than Speth could have imagined in 2004. Few could have foreseen the specter of the current political administration’s rejection of science, rollback of environmental governance, and denunciation of tolerance, transparency, and participation.
These are the contours of our contemporary crisis. A crisis where the extreme challenges of global environmental deterioration meet the calamitous social, political, and economic challenges of our time to create an absurdly existential tragedy of our own making. As we stand staring into the void of what could be our last act, hope seems distant and joy even more so. But, in July 2025, when 17 environmental law professors came together in New York over the course of three days to discuss “Blue Sky Thinking in a Red Sky World”, there was little doubt that despite great fears, frustrations, and uncertainty, there was a unifying commitment to resistance and re-imagining. Embracing a plot of resistance and re-imagining means working together to resist the erosion of our environment and our democracy. It also means coupling these efforts with a commitment to re-imagining what it would mean to create a world where Mother Earth is not beleaguered and where all her inhabitants are able not merely to survive, but to flourish.
These commitments echo the story of environmental law – a story grounded in optimism amidst adversity and heralded by protagonists of resistance and positive change. A story where courageous scientists such as Rachel Carson melded science with storytelling to motivate change against powerful industrial opposition; where bold and persistent leaders such as Wangari Maathai overcame great odds to revolutionize action at the intersection of economic progress, social change and environmental protection; where environmental law pioneers such as Joe Sax, David Sive, Gus Speth, and Robert Bullard drove the creation of an extensive system of environmental law and centered thinking around essential questions of environmental justice; where, now, a new generation of courageous youth and climate justice leaders are advancing transformative change against all the odds. The story of environmental law has always been one of courage, innovation, and persistence against seemingly intractable structures of power and opposition.
We are at a point in the story of environmental law where the plot may have thickened but, as ever, the end is not inevitable. In this moment, environmental law protagonists must embrace the imperative of blue sky thinking – that is, thinking that is creative, ambitious, and not bound by external parameters such as those the current administration seeks to impose. It is thinking that reflects the optimism and vision upon which environmental law was founded and emphasizes the continuing imperative of creativity and innovation. It is thinking that embraces the possibility of vision-imbued resistance that simultaneously seeks to curb the erosion of existing systems of environmental governance while also planning for a more positive, equitable, and sustainable future. It is thinking that sees the looming red skies and envisions courage and a positive pathway forward.
As one of our great protagonists of change, Wangari Maathai, stated “[i]t is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in.”
Cinnamon Carlarne Hirokawa is President and Dean of Albany Law School .
