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17 Ecology L.Q. 621 (1990)
When Law Makes Climate Change Worse: Rethinking the Law of Baselines in Light of a Rising Sea Level

handle is hein.journals/eclawq17 and id is 635 raw text is: When Law Makes Climate Change Worse: Rethinking the Law of Baselines in Light of a Rising Sea Level David D. Caron * INTRODUCTION Edward Teller reportedly once proposed that nuclear detonations be used to close the Strait of Gibraltar. His idea was that as the Mediterra- nean rose and became fresher, the water could be used to bring the Sa- hara to life. He acknowledged, of course, that the cost of such progress would be the loss of Venice and other Mediterranean sea-level cities.' Ironically, we find today that, rather than Tellerite fantasies, the more banal and prosaic day-to-day activities of a growing world population threaten to change the climate of the world and flood coastal cities, not only in the Mediterranean but around the globe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that overall global temperatures will rise in the next century and that this global warming will have tremendous effects on the environment.2 This Copyright 0 1990 by ECOLOGY LAw QUARTERLY * Acting Professor of Law, School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California at Berkeley; Dr. jur. 1990, Drs. 1985, Leiden University; Dip. 1984, Hague Academy of Interna- tional Law; J.D. 1983, School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California at Berkeley; M.Sc. 1980, University of Wales Center for Marine Law and Policy; B.S. 1974, U.S. Coast Guard Academy. I wish to thank Lewis M. Alexander, John Briscoe, Jon Charney, David Colson, Robert Cooter, John Dwyer, Bernard H. Oxman, Stefan A. Riesenfeld, Harry N. Scheiber, and the participants in my Advanced International Law Research Seminar for their comments and criticisms. Drafts of this paper were presented to the Ocean Resources Committee of the Western Legislative Conference on November 11, 1989 in Monterey, California, and to the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures on December 7, 1989 in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia. This work is a result of research sponsored in part by NOAA, National Sea Grant College Program, Department of Commerce, under grant number NA85AA-D-SG140, project number R/NP-1-18P, through the California Sea Grant College Program, and in part by the California State Resources Agency. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute this Article for governmental purposes. 1. R. SYLVEs, THE NUCLEAR ORACLES 193 (1987). 2. Whitney, Scientists Urge Rapid Action on Global Warming, N.Y. Times, May 26, 1990, at A6, col. I (citing REPORT OF UNITED NATIONS INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (May 25, 1990)); see also Stevens, Earlier Harm Seen in Global Warming, N.Y. Times, Oct. 17, 1990, at A9, col. 1 (reporting conclusions of the independent Advisory

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