Advertise on podcast: Hothouse Earth

An excerpt of a special community conversation about the oral argument in Suncor Energy v County Commissioners of Boulder County, which was held a few days after oral arguments in the case were held at the US Supreme Court. The case considers the defendant oil companies’ appeal of a decision for the Colorado Supreme Court, which allowed Boulder’s climate nuisance case against those companies to go forward. We are sharing panel’s introductory remarks and their final takeaways. Click here to hear the full conversation and the Q and A afterwards.

As part of the 2026 Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series, VLGS summer faculty and environmental law expert @Sean Donahue, a partner at Donahue, Goldberg, Herzog and Davidson, discusses federal environmental policy under the second Trump administration. In this podcast replay of his lecture, “Federal Climate Policy: Demolition and Reconstruction,” he provides a history of the profound changes in environmental legislation and policy over the past decade, contrasts the current Trump administration's policy efforts with those of the first Trump administration, and examines the ongoing demolition of climate policy at the federal level. He also discusses possible policy directions for environmental progress despite these challenges.

As part of the VLGS's celebration of its 50th commencement year, the Environmental Law Center (ELC) gathered past and present VLGS environmental leaders to participate in a roundtable discussion reflecting on VLGS’s record of leadership in environmental law and policy, reckoning with unmet challenges, and looking ahead to the future of the field. The panel featured Gus Speth, Patrick Parenteau, Tamara Toles O’Laughlin JD/MELP’09, Lindi Mutius Widell JD’08, and Jennifer Rushlow. The panel was moderated by ELC Director Christophe Courchesne and David Mears JD'91.

As part of the 2026 Hot Topics in Environmental Law lecture series, Professor Jared Carter JD’09, Vermont Law and Graduate School, and Heather Murray, Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic, discuss how defamation and related claims, often constituting Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP), have recently been used as a sword to attempt to silence environmental advocacy organizations and journalists, and the potential defenses provided by state anti-SLAPP laws.

Christophe Courchesne, director of the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law and Graduate School, speaks with Alejandro Camacho, professor of law at UCLA School of Law. Camacho’s latest book with Brigham Daniels, Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of US Environmental Law, traces the history of U.S. environmental law from colonization to the present, examining five distinct areas, highlighting the tension between idealists and pragmatists, and offering lessons for contemporary challenges like climate change.

Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice—the world’s largest nonprofit public interest environmental law organization—gives an inspiring address to Vermont Law and Graduate School graduates and audience members alike for VLGS’s 50th commencement.

On the latest episode, Pat Parenteau, Professor of Law Emeritus and Senior Fellow for Climate Policy at the Environmental Law Center, joins Rachel Westrate and Terrence Neal, Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Parenteau Climate Action Fellows, to discuss EPA's international role, past and present. They discuss the EPA's longtime role in international environmental cooperation, the current Administration's unprecedented disengagement from international agreements and forums, and the prospects for law students to launch careers in international environmental law. Both Rachel and Terrence come to VLGS from EPA, where they worked on international law and policy issues during the Biden Administration and the early days of the second Trump Administration.

Our host, Lindi von Mutius JD'08, visiting professor of law at Vermont Law and Graduate School, Class of 1946 Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College, and inaugural director of the Center for Environmental Networks, chats with Chandra Taylor-Sawyer, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). She is also SELC's Environmental Justice Initiative leader, which has produced "Plantations to Pollution: Black Communities, Legacy Pollution, and the Path Forward," a multimedia storytelling series following the throughline from slavery to pollution—revealing how Black communities have borne environmental injustices for generations and continue to demand the healthy present and future they deserve.

Natural and man-made disasters are an important and increasingly relevant topic for us all. World-renowned expert Dr. Kirsten Bookmiller, professor in the Department of Government, Law, and International Relations and a faculty associate with the Center for Disaster Research and Education at Millersville University, discusses the complex impact of disasters on every level, including human rights, migration, and displacement, and the need for robust interdisciplinary frameworks for disaster law.

As part of the 2025 Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series, Sean Donahue, partner at Donahue, Goldberg & Herzog, and Bob Percival, director of the Environmental Law Program and the Robert F. Stanton Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, discuss recent Supreme Court decisions and the state of environmental law during the second Trump administration.

As part of our Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series, Sharmila Murthy, Northeastern University School of Law, gives an impactful Hot Topics lecture, “Sustaining Environmental Justice,” that dovetails with our last episode (28), "Advancing Environmental Justice in a Chaotic Time," by Marianne Engelman Lado, New York University School of Law and Vermont Law and Graduate School Distinguished Environmental Law Summer Scholar.

As part of our Hot Topics in Environmental Law Summer Lecture Series, Marianne Engelman Lado, New York University School of Law and Vermont Law and Graduate School Distinguished Environmental Law Summer Scholar, talks about how to advance environmental justice in a chaotic time.

Julia Olson, co-executive director and chief legal counsel of Our Children's Trust, a nonprofit law firm she founded in 2010 to empower young people to secure their climate rights, delivered an empowering environmental honorary degree lecture at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

Edward Keable, Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, chats with Callum LaFrance, Legal Fellow for the Environmental Justice Clinic and the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School. They discuss the intricacies of managing the Grand Canyon National Park. Learn more - listen to the Behind the Scenery (U.S. National Park Service) podcast series. The latest episode talks about fire ecology. Also, check out Grand Canyon Speaks - Grand Canyon National Park (U.S. National Park Service) and Minute Out In It - Grand Canyon National Park (U.S. National Park Service) ,which is a collection of short films about the park's nature and culture in action.

Hothouse Earth is excited to share a special cross-podcast from the New Books Network, featuring over 15,000 interviews with authors about their latest books. Last month, New Books Network host Stephen Pimpare, professor of Public Policy at Vermont Law and Graduate School, spoke with J. Mijin Cha, assistant professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz and Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Distinguished Energy Law Summer Scholar this year. Cha discusses her book, A Just Transition for All: Workers and Communities for a Carbon-Free Future. To meet the greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed to stave off the worst impacts of climate change, a transition away from fossil fuels must occur, as quickly as possible. But there are many unknowns when it comes to moving from theory to implementation for such a large-scale energy transition, to say nothing of whether this transition will be “just.” In A Just Transition for All: Workers and Communities for a Carbon-Free Future (MIT Press, 2024), J. Mijin Cha—a seasoned climate policy researcher who also works with advocacy organizations and unions—offers a comprehensive analysis of how we can actualize a just transition in the U.S. context and enact transformational changes that meaningfully improve people’s lives. Cha provides a novel governance framework called the “Four+ Pillars,” formulated from original research to provide a way to move from theory to practice. The “Pillars” framework includes a novel analysis that guides readers in understanding how to formulate effective just transition policies, what makes them just or unjust, and, similarly, what makes transition just and unjust. The framework also combines theoretical discussions with original empirical research and provides insights into perceptions of just transition. Grounded in real-world perspectives that make the case for policies that advance a just transition for all, not just fossil fuel workers, Cha charts the path forward to an equitable and sustainable future that no longer depends on fossil fuels.