Center for Biological Diversity

Kieran Suckling, Peter Galvin, and the Center for Biological Diversity Reinvent Environmentalism... 

Standing in the path of this future Tejon Ranch is a relatively little-known environmental group with a small budget and outsize ambitions, the Center for Biological Diversity. 

Except—with the Center for Biological Diversity, there s always an except —what if it turned out that there have been obscure laws on the books since the 1970s that already require builders to limit greenhouse gases and slow global warming What if the only problem is that no one thought to ask ... 

The story of the Center for Biological Diversity begins not with lawsuits or protests, but with the hooters. 

Oddly missing from the official celebration by the environmentalists and company officials was any mention of the fact that 26,000 homes as well as hotels, condos, golf courses, and an industrial center were still going to be plopped in the midst of the wilderness that was being celebrated. Nor was the fact that local activists for the Sierra Club, who actually lived near the area slated for development and adamantly opposed it, had been excluded from the process and the press conference. They were forced to resign from leadership roles in the local Sierra Club chapter so they could continue to voice opposition to the development. Now the Center for Biological Diversity is their last hope. 

But then the MacDonald scandal erupted, as a result of the work of the Center for Biological Diversity, and the lynx decision became one of seven cases in which manipulation of the underlying science was so clear that the head of the fish and wildlife service reluctantly conceded they had become a blemish on the scientific integrity of the Interior Department. The question of critical habitat for the lynx was reopened. In February 2008, the agency once again proposed designating a large protected habitat for the lynx that would encom-... 

Other major legal victories by the Center for Biological Diversity include the following ... 

Hassett predicted that the Center for Biological Diversity and its colleagues would sue Kempthorne and win, and that the case would almost surely go down in history as the turning point in the global-warming debate. ... 

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