Shifting Ground to Address Climate Change: The Land Use Law Solution

Abstract

This article conceives and describes a Land Use Stabilization Wedge: a strategy that aggregates five wedges and further organizes strategic energies. This builds on Robert Socolow's optimistic assertion that "an excuse for inaction based on the world's lack of technological readiness does not exist." I assert that the existing legal authority of state and local governments to regulate and guide land use and building is a powerful "technology already deployed somewhere in the world." The Land Use Stabilization Wedge aggregates several of Socolow's initiatives and employs multiple mitigation techniques available to citizens in every locality in the country.