Updated: Jul 31, 2020
Dear readers,
Recently, I've been writing an essay for an essay competition about environmental Law. Since I am interested in both the environment and legislature (an interest I have gained through debating), I decided to give myself the challenge of participating in this competition.
The topic was "How to Strengthen the Environmental Laws and Treaties and Promote Sustainable Growth." Although it was quite rushed at the end, it was a good opportunity to gain an insight into the environmental legislature.
Essay Link: https://shyoon22.wixsite.com/seanyoon/post/a-revised-environmental-law-rejection-is-not-in-order
Writing this essay was also a good chance to consolidate my views on climate change legislation. I am personally sceptical that solely good intentions can better the environment, and believes that market-based approaches that exploit people's selfishness are hugely more effective.
Another lesson I learnt was that environmental law also has its limitations, if not reciprocated with citizen support. Quite often, we blame politicians for their incompetence and the seemingly unnecessary quarrel they strain themselves in. But when my mind remained blank after an hour of brainstorming, I quite learned how actualizing a social goal is much harder than it seems. This is not to say that all politicians are performing seamlessly, but I mean that such environmental problems cannot be entirely tackled down using a top-down approach.
Nonetheless, I must say that the greatest obstacle was my lack of knowledge about law, though I could CPR my knowledge with a Yale course by professor John Wargo that I found on Youtube. There were also other helpful resources as well, but I found his lecture most interesting. Below are the essay and the link so you could access it if you were interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8BG-MJErSM&t=2505s
The link to the competition (The prize for first place is a white paper delivered to the U.S. Congress, so you might want to join next year):
http://www.hobykorea.com/product/product_view.htm?product_category=05000000&idx=9546