Topics – The GW Point Source

September 28, 2025November 9, 2025

2025 Shapiro Distinguished Lecture

On September 23, 2025, faculty, students, and guests gathered for the Fourth Annual J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Distinguished Lecture on Global Climate Change and Energy Law. This year’s lecture was delivered by Professor Lyndon W. Jay Huffington, a Colombian legal scholar from Universidad Externado de Colombia with more than a decade of experience in the mining-energy sector. His lecture, provocatively titled “Clean Energy, Dirty Secrets: Latin America’s Struggles with Illegal Mining and Artificial Intelligence as a Potential Game-Changer for Environmental Justice,” shed light on the contradictions of the clean energy transition and the often overlooked social and environmental costs that accompany it.

The Fourth Annual Shapiro Distinguished Lecture on Global Climate Change and Energy Law delivered by Professor Lyndon W. Jay Huffington.

September 20, 2025October 18, 2025

Book Talk: Prof. Roy Gardner on Waters of the United States

On September 18, 2025, GW Law’s Environmental & Energy Law Program welcomed Professor Roy Gardner of Stetson University College of Law for a book talk and signing of his new book, Waters of the United States: POTUS, SCOTUS, WOTUS, and the Politics of a National Resource.

The event opened with introductory remarks from Randall S. Abate, Assistant Dean for Environmental Law Studies, who welcomed attendees and highlighted the importance of Professor Gardner’s work in the context of ongoing debates over federal wetlands protections.

Prof. Gardner began by tracing the historical reasons why federal involvement in water quality became essential. For decades, common law remedies proved inadequate, and states often failed to control pollution effectively. These shortcomings were underscored by infamous events such as the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catching fire due to unchecked industrial waste — stark reminders of the urgent need for national action.

January 28, 2025February 10, 2025

Galamsey and the Struggle for Ghana’s Future: Environmental Degradation and the Resistance Movement

Benedicta Osei-Boateng

Photo Credit: Ruth McDowall, featured in Detecting Gold Mining in Ghana, NASA Landsat Image Gallery.

The West African nation of Ghana is endowed with natural resources such as water, forests, and substantial deposits of high-value minerals including gold, diamonds, bauxite, and manganese. As a tropical country, Ghana enjoys a significant amount of sunshine to support the development of solar power. It also has an ample wind system and biomass base. Taken together, these renewable and nonrenewable resources make Ghana a resource-rich nation.

As is the case with most countries that abound with natural resources, in recent years Ghana has seen a dramatic rise in the deterioration of its natural resources primarily caused by small and medium-scale artisanal mining, popularly called “galamsey.” The term is a corrupted version of two words “gather and sell,” which connote the gathering and selling of gold. This practice has led to environmental degradation, land and water resource depletion, health hazards for miners, and social and economic impacts.[1] There is also medical evidence suggesting that galamsey activities have resulted in new health challenges including neonatal defects that are traceable to unregulated heavy metals like arsenic and mercury that have found their way into groundwater systems through illegal alluvial mining.

January 28, 2025February 11, 2025

Climate Change and Human Mobility: The Urban Challenge of Climate Displacement in Colombia

Laura Serna Mosquera

Photo credit: Climate Refugees

Climate change has become one of the most significant drivers of human mobility worldwide, forcing millions to leave their homes. The Groundswell report by the World Bank predicts that by 2050, 216 million people could be internally displaced due to climate-related factors. Similarly, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center recorded 26.4 million new displacements caused by disasters in 2023 alone.^[1]

October 28, 2024February 11, 2025

Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic – Environmental Justice Division Students Address Lead Poisoning Threats to Children

The Health Equity Policy & Advocacy Clinic – Environmental Justice (EJ) Division’s students Anna Aguilar, Sidney Lee, Jaylah Richie, and Emma Stinson successfully drafted and submitted comments to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on behalf of 20 organizations, associations, and individuals. The comments respond to the lowering of the definition of elevated blood lead level (EBLL) in the Lead Safe Housing Rule (LSHR) to match the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) blood lead reference value. The Clinic’s submission combines environmental justice, housing justice, and health equity principles and standards to argue for the protection of children from lead hazards. Specifically, the Clinic pointed out HUD’s significant delay in adopting the CDC reference value and urged HUD to engage in primary prevention to protect vulnerable children from lead poisoning and its permanent harm.

The students conducted legal and public health research and analysis, and stakeholder outreach activities. To prepare the comments, they answered administrative law questions, analyzed statutory language, reviewed scientific data, reached out to experts, created fact sheets, and collaborated with the Clinic’s partner organizations to review their findings and receive feedback. The students also alerted nonprofits and encouraged submissions that urged HUD to follow health-based and environmental justice best practices. The students’ outreach prompted many organizations to join their comment or send in their own comment that incorporated the Clinic comment by reference. In addition, GW Law and Medical School student groups joined the comment.