How Utility Monopoly Power Crushes Climate Progress

Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. He helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament.

Shelley Welton is Presidential Distinguished Professor of Law and Energy Policy with the Kleinman Center and Penn Carey Law. Welton previously was an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. Welton’s scholarship focuses on how climate change is transforming energy and environmental governance within the United States and transnationally. Current research projects include exploring a just energy transition for the U.S. south; understanding what lessons the failed nuclear renaissance offers for climate infrastructure development; and investigating grid reliability governance under climate change. Her scholarship has appeared in publications including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Harvard Environmental Law Review.