Jane Maslow Cohen, University of Texas, Law, jcohen@law.utexas.edu
ABSTRACT: Multi-disciplinary research on “bioprecipitation” advances the thesis that ice nucleators of biological origin are a principal cause of rain. This same research finds that the world’s most prolific ice nucleator is a plant pathogen treated within agronomy as the enemy of the good through campaigns of aggressive eradication. This as well as other common practices may be destroying precipitation potential and may be a causative feature of desertification and drought. This Essay draws out some of the legal and policy-based implications of these theses and considers the introduction of a new call to ethical principle.
KEY WORDS: bioprecipitation; climate change; hydrological cycle; rainfall; American water law and policy reform