Environmental Issues Facing U.S. In 2012 Listed By Vermont Law School (PHOTOS)

What are the biggest environmental and energy policy challenges facing America today? A list from Vermont Law School highlights the 10 most important U.S. environmental issues of 2011 that will also matter in 2012.

Many of the issues on the Vermont Law Top 10 Environmental Watch List 2012 focus on energy policy. The Keystone XL pipeline, coal mining and the repercussions of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, for example, are all featured prominently.

In addition to the issues listed below, extreme weather has also taken a toll on both the U.S. and the rest of the world in 2011. Government officials and environmental advocates have become increasingly concerned with the links between extreme weather, climate change and impacts on public health.

To see the impact of extreme weather on the U.S. this year, check out the worst U.S. natural disasters of 2011 and the 10 states most affected by natural disasters this year.

List and captions courtesy of Vermont Law School.

For more on the best of 2011, visit AOL's Best of 2011.

Comments

[Kenz300]

01:39 PM on 04/25/2012

We all need clean air, clean water, pollution free land and safe food to eat.

There once was a time when rivers caught fire in the US.

We need sane, sensible regulation.

Letting corporations make profits while polluting and leaving the mess for taxpayers to pay for the clean up is what we did before the EPA.

[Genders]

04:19 PM on 01/18/2012

What about the rest of the world aging nuke plants melting down?

[Kenz300]

01:42 PM on 04/25/2012

The spent fuel rod pools at Fukishima are a disaster waiting to happen.

The disaster at Fukishima continues today with no end in sight.

[Kenz300]

07:26 PM on 12/26/2011

The biggest environmental issues facing the country are the big lies and misinformation that Republican donor funded groups and individuals spread every day with their corporate and billionaire funded attacks on science, climate change and the environment.

[Stephen the Grate]

06:31 PM on 12/26/2011

With the coming changes in climate, human beings are causing the fifth great mass extinction event in the history of life on this planet. Greed and the accumulation of wealth by a select few, no matter the cost, is doing tremendous damage to our environment and the creatures who must live here. Until we see through the propaganda (with education) and stop raping the planet of its limited riches, our current path will result in the end of over 90% of the plant and animal species on this earth! Including, possibly, us!

[quillsinister]

03:35 AM on 12/27/2011

I thought this was the sixth extinction event for some reason. All the same, you're pretty much spot on. Strange to see an entire species bent on suicide.

[Overtone]

03:21 PM on 12/26/2011

One of the biggest challenges is the unrecognized mortal threat from a very possible solar magnetic storm. We are playing Russian roulette with the sun!

The NOAA sees the next five years as dangerous with a peak peril in 2013.

NASA warns that a solar magnetic storm can collapse power grids worldwide for years.

Nuclear plants without grid power for a month are meltdown candidates.

See www.aesopinstitute.org for an overview.

Human survival may be at hazard. As the facts become known this potential nightmare probably can be prevented by wise, rapid, effective action.

Since hundreds of millions of lives are potentially at hazard, and a solar threat pays no attention to partisan politics, an intelligent program of prevention might result in a surprising change in the political and economic landscape.

External threats tend to unify. We have a very real opportunity to move past the present political gridlock.

[aforbes808]

01:18 PM on 12/26/2011

Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
Fatal attraction is holding me fast,
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted Just an earth-bound misfit, I
- Pink Floyd

[OkieMon]

09:19 AM on 12/26/2011

high volume fracking and the trillions of gallons of fresh drinking water the process pollutes on a monthly basis....and that is just in preparing the toxic fracking mixture.....is the number one environmental issue in this country...fossil fuel fasc*ism is number two....

[farmilyman]

02:40 AM on 12/26/2011

A big issue will be the destruction of ground water sources through fracking and mountain top removal. Nothing will be done before it's too late because too many people vote republican.

[Kenz300]

01:43 PM on 04/25/2012

People have been convinced by right wing talk radio and fuax noise to vote against their own best interests and for the interests of the top 1%. All that corporate money buys a lot of agenda driven infomercials.

[Chipher]

05:33 PM on 12/25/2011

Mearry Cirhstmas Eveyrone_http://wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files/

[Terry Floyd]

04:29 AM on 12/24/2011

America Love her and leave her healthy for the Grand younguns!

Responsibility is taking care of your own garbage. Its not patriotic to
poison your neighbors or the grand kids.
Dr James Hansen proposes using $25B Nuclear Waste Fund in accelerating
deployment of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor(LFTR) reactors.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20081121_Obama.pdf
Lets do this the Real ole fashioned American way.
Use American R&D Tech Dr Alvin Weinberg engineered at Oak Ridge
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors and the http://www.coal2nuclear.com/
proposed designs to modify coal burners for an All American clean energy
TOUCHDOWN.

“....burning coal at the average 1GWe power plant produces about 13 tons of thorium per year. that thorium is recoverable from the power plant’s waste ash pile.
one ton of thorium will produce nearly 1 GW of electricity for a year in an efficient thorium cycle reactor. Thus CURRENT COAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGY THROWS
AWAY OVER TEN TIMES THE ENERGY IT PRODUCES AS ELECTRICITY.
This is not the result of poor thermodynamic efficiency; it is the result of a failure to recognize and use the energy value of thorium. The amount of thorium present in surface mining coal waste is enormous and would provide all the power human society needs for thousands of years, without resorting to any special mining for thorium, or the use of any other form or energy recovery.”

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4971

[Craig Bovia]

09:25 AM on 12/23/2011

Don't expect scalia and his gang of traitors to support the Middle Class or the Poor. They are there for the 1% and the 1% only. Show me where it says money is free speech in the Constitution. Our Fore-Fathers outlawed corporation. Show me where it says in the Constitution that corporations are people. Using that logic, ATT can run for President and their board of directors can change Presidents by a simple vote. scalia and his gang continue writing new law that started with the theft of the 2000 Election.

[Matt Norman]

04:28 AM on 12/24/2011

The Supreme Court don't write laws.

[Craig Bovia]

09:54 AM on 12/24/2011

scalia and his gang do beginning with their prejudiced application of the law to give bush/shamey the 2000 election. Check with the most recently retired Justice. That corporations are people and money is free speech instead of property is new law recently written by scalia and his gang of American Traitors.

[Genders]

04:16 PM on 01/18/2012

They just misinterpret them.

[rshrink]

01:25 AM on 12/23/2011

Impact seen as roughly comparable to radiation-related deaths after Chernobyl; infants are hardest hit, with continuing research showing even higher possible death count.

"An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima."

http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/9004-study-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-disaster-fallout

Our wonderful media is failing to get this information out. Do you think they want to cover up the dangers of nuclear energy?

[Chipher]

05:36 PM on 12/25/2011

Because the report is widely considered junk like A.G.W. _wattsupwiththat.com/climate-fail-files

[rshrink]

07:05 PM on 12/25/2011

Conservatives consider all science "junk." It doesn't meet with their gross need for fantasy.

[rshrink]

08:02 PM on 12/25/2011

Better look at this and then, wake up, before it is too late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKIn6NtR9I

[jim62]

05:39 PM on 12/22/2011

You can thank the republican right wing that is running Ohio now. as long as its not in their neighbor hood they just dont care and demonize anyone that speaks out. This state is getting worse by the day they are suppressing the vote and soon we will be just like communist run Michigan. Voteing is getting to be a thing of the past.

[Dalpine]

05:12 PM on 12/22/2011

At least here in California, our biggest threat seems to be aerosol spraying and the EPA who keeps cutting off water to farmers.

[Genders]

10:47 PM on 12/22/2011

Lucky you.

[rshrink]

01:29 AM on 12/23/2011

Are you kidding. Southern California has some of the worst smog problems imaginable. Have you ever compared the longevity of Californians to other cities? Do you even know about the radiation levels that hit following Fukushima? The water cutoff is due to water shortage. That is due to the destruction of wetlands and that is due to continued growth, combined with the fact that you live in a desert.

[quillsinister]

03:50 AM on 12/27/2011

LA certainly. I don't notice it in San Diego. Actually, having grown up in Sacramento, I'd say there's where you find the worst smog in the state. The valley traps it all, whereas near the ocean it can at least be carried out to sea.

As for the farmers, it was probably unwise to plant so many orchards in such an arid region in the first place, since it could only be sustained by a tenuous supply chain. The "fish vs. farmers" debate is disappointing, as it demonstrates how few people really grok the food chain. Had the decision gone against the smelt, we'd hear the same complaints from the fishing industry.

[mysaltydog]

02:47 PM on 12/22/2011

And the 10 biggest environmental problems America will face in 2012: GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP, GOP.