Until this week's readings, we had not really gotten a discussion in depth of the four theses that Robbins sets aside in his book. This week, along with an article on the Nicaraguan Coffee Crisis, we investigated Degradation and Marginalization.
The thesis is basically this: because of state intervention and development of land in various different cases, systems of land and farming undergo radical changes that usually result in an exploitation of resources. Communities become marginalized as the same forces challenge the existing structures of governance and operation in each community.
The two standout case studies in Robbins were deforestation in the Amazon and banana farming in the Caribbean. What is important to note is that while degradation and marginalization can be applied to the causes of extreme deforestation in the the Amazonian forest (with some critiques of course) the same results that might foster a label of degradation and marginalization had little or nothing to do with the shortage of food produced in Grossman's Carribean. In that second case, cash crops did not have an effect on the community in the same way.
I like that Robbins is always pointing out how much prospective matters in each piece of his book. It is really important to understand that we take so many ecological concepts for granted and that nature is so often misinterpreted because of the way it is marketed as a commodity. Degradation and Marginalization sound a lot worse than they can be, and both the Caribbean study and the nature of understanding the UNESCO forest from chapter 5 are dependent on the perspective one uses.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Acess to Resources and Landscape Change
Land degradation and development policies and studies have clearly been needing an overhaul. In this introduction to a journal volume published in 1999, Batterbury and Bebbington take the time to outline how each of the papers included in the preceding volume ground themselves in multifaceted approaches with multiple levels of analysis.
Off the bat, one of the clearest issues is access to resource and how that is affected by different social structures, including local, statewide, federal, and global governance. All of these levels are intertwined and this is demonstrated in the variance of options that Batterbuy and Bebbington offer to make the papers more relevant (local political ecology vs. partnership research).
Something that occurs to me as insurmountable is how intertwined each level of analysis is to its neighbors. This is where emphasis of level really comes into play in clarifying the point or goal of research. However, where one emphasis takes precedence in a paper, report, or research, I am confused as to how one could possibly feel satisfied with results without feeling as though other levels of analysis where shortchanged. This is not to discount this type of research.
Land degradation is a serious problem to be sure, but the best way to communicate the environmental concerns associated with it is even harder. What levels of analysis are most effective? Must each report be catered to a certain group to give its full potential of understanding? How far back must historical relevance and research go to provide a satisfiable picture?
Off the bat, one of the clearest issues is access to resource and how that is affected by different social structures, including local, statewide, federal, and global governance. All of these levels are intertwined and this is demonstrated in the variance of options that Batterbuy and Bebbington offer to make the papers more relevant (local political ecology vs. partnership research).
Something that occurs to me as insurmountable is how intertwined each level of analysis is to its neighbors. This is where emphasis of level really comes into play in clarifying the point or goal of research. However, where one emphasis takes precedence in a paper, report, or research, I am confused as to how one could possibly feel satisfied with results without feeling as though other levels of analysis where shortchanged. This is not to discount this type of research.
Land degradation is a serious problem to be sure, but the best way to communicate the environmental concerns associated with it is even harder. What levels of analysis are most effective? Must each report be catered to a certain group to give its full potential of understanding? How far back must historical relevance and research go to provide a satisfiable picture?
Monday, November 2, 2009
Political Ecology, Critical Tools
The more I begin to understand the implications behind Political Ecology, the more fascinating a field it becomes. This week's reading challenged my understanding of the capitalist and communist theories of economy in relation to the environment. While initially it seemed like capitalism was going to be the clear bad guy, Robbins drew out his section on Green Materialism to point out that only some key parts of Marxism and his contemporaries contributed to Political Ecology.
I think that this is an incredibly complicated, but important, distinction. First of all, Robbins takes quite a risk in equating Political Ecology to Marxism when he's writing to help us understand political ecology, at least here in the United States where capitalism holds sway. Even though we may think our politics can adjust, or that we can become progressive, events like the current economic failures and the most recent crisis have shown that the solutions we have in this country are to support the system we have been building and thriving on...there is no drastic socioeconomic change in sight.
Thus it is a concern of mine that in communicating important values of Political Ecology, even if Robbins' intent is to show how materialism only influenced it, even the mention of communist theory is polarizing. I know that my initial reaction was one of skepticism, not even because I do not respect the theory behind Marxism, but because I am just conditioned to throw up a red flag in that situation.
Still, with careful reading, it is clear the the economic influences of PE are not entirely materialist, and in fact Robins lays out the argument very carefully.
I think that this is an incredibly complicated, but important, distinction. First of all, Robbins takes quite a risk in equating Political Ecology to Marxism when he's writing to help us understand political ecology, at least here in the United States where capitalism holds sway. Even though we may think our politics can adjust, or that we can become progressive, events like the current economic failures and the most recent crisis have shown that the solutions we have in this country are to support the system we have been building and thriving on...there is no drastic socioeconomic change in sight.
Thus it is a concern of mine that in communicating important values of Political Ecology, even if Robbins' intent is to show how materialism only influenced it, even the mention of communist theory is polarizing. I know that my initial reaction was one of skepticism, not even because I do not respect the theory behind Marxism, but because I am just conditioned to throw up a red flag in that situation.
Still, with careful reading, it is clear the the economic influences of PE are not entirely materialist, and in fact Robins lays out the argument very carefully.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Political Ecology, An Intro To
Political Ecology, especially defined by Robbins, really excites me. While perhaps it isn’t the purest of sciences (if you could call it that) with its open and upfront admission about being normative, it seems that this aspect is more a result of being realistic than it is about having “the right’ opinion. It seems that being normative frees up the field from the criticism that would result automatically if any of its studies were published on the basis of being completely unbiased.
Furthermore, I think that Political Ecology’s goal is about understanding and describing the reality in ecological issues across the globe. I like that Robbins uses examples like the Kenyan and Tanzanian parts of the Serengeti ecosystem as an example. It is important to understand how this ecosystem is viewed in a culture that is very detached from it, especially as it is glorified the way Robbins points out. The existence of political ecology allows us to see human impact in this glorified habitat as it is, not as Disney portrays it.
Something else that excites me are they varying theses that Robbins mentions. I like that there are a number varying goals and that within each of the goals there is a whole variation on the field of Political Ecology. These are clear and stated goals, though they allow for extensive and varied research.
Perhaps one concern of mine though, would be communicating this material to people who do not automatically sympathize with an environmentally progressive attitude, or at least whatever/however a given political ecologist sees their work. Because this is taken out the realm of attempting to be unbiased in research and because this is overtly political, there needs to be some consideration about how to target audiences that need to hear or understand the results of research the most without alienating them on that principle….it’s always particularly hard to change close-minded disbelievers when it comes to the environment (harder and harder as the evidence to support the very immediate changes that need to be address become clearer and clearer to more…non-believers have to hold onto some pretty entrenched ideas).
Monday, October 12, 2009
Speth and Kraft on the Stalling on Environmentalism
Looking around me on a college campus, I start to see a lot of promise in the actions of some students as passions about sustainability and environmentally friendly living in general become more mainstream. I think about my hometown (Northampton, MA) and the locally oriented -and regionally famous- restaurant scene, about our flourishing community gardens, and all the farms and maple sugar shacks that provide Western Mass with its delicious local food. I think about land preservation that is brought about by locals working with municipalities and businesses and particularly about one neighborhood that fought a local developer to preserve their tract of wetlands.
All these efforts are individual or localized with communal impact, but while some of us seem to be doing our part and more to be conscious, Kraft and Speth together this week begin to point to an overarching problem which remains a monstrous blemish on the environmentalist record, particularly here in the US: the failure of effective environmental policy to push both the national and international communities toward sustainable practices. Speth's chapter lines up right with Kraft and his epochs:
1970s: Massive shift in policy as environmental issues push to the forefront of the national political agenda and the EPA is created. (1st epoch)
1980s-late 90s: Market incentives dramatically change the intent and direction of environmental problems, deriving more economic profit and development than progress towards sustainability.
2000s-present: Environmentalism in total, on the coat-tails of Global Climate Change, jockeys for international concern alongside other major issues (i.e. terrorism and oil), while sustainable practices begin to pop up locally.
Speth and Kraft both point out the shortcomings of environmental policy in Kraft's third epoch (or the last decade or so). Sure, sustainable practices at local levels by citizens who care are great, but what is being done to change the way policy is structured or implemented. Speth particularly finds many problems with the inefficiency of the system, calling it out on its principles and the neglecting of root causes by policy makers. Kraft focuses more on the specifics of policy faliure, particularly with projects that are underfunded, underdeveloped, and poorly managed (see the Endangered Species Act). Kraft's greater point is that even beyond the failure of the system to establish legislation with teeth, the lack of attention and resources for environmental issues in the US suffers many malfunctions with program evaluation.
What's important here is not that many local victories are beginning to occur. While that is important, what Speth and Kraft demonstrate this week is that there are a number of great contradictions in the US (and world) governmental system in regards to progress towards a more sustainable world.
All these efforts are individual or localized with communal impact, but while some of us seem to be doing our part and more to be conscious, Kraft and Speth together this week begin to point to an overarching problem which remains a monstrous blemish on the environmentalist record, particularly here in the US: the failure of effective environmental policy to push both the national and international communities toward sustainable practices. Speth's chapter lines up right with Kraft and his epochs:
1970s: Massive shift in policy as environmental issues push to the forefront of the national political agenda and the EPA is created. (1st epoch)
1980s-late 90s: Market incentives dramatically change the intent and direction of environmental problems, deriving more economic profit and development than progress towards sustainability.
2000s-present: Environmentalism in total, on the coat-tails of Global Climate Change, jockeys for international concern alongside other major issues (i.e. terrorism and oil), while sustainable practices begin to pop up locally.
Speth and Kraft both point out the shortcomings of environmental policy in Kraft's third epoch (or the last decade or so). Sure, sustainable practices at local levels by citizens who care are great, but what is being done to change the way policy is structured or implemented. Speth particularly finds many problems with the inefficiency of the system, calling it out on its principles and the neglecting of root causes by policy makers. Kraft focuses more on the specifics of policy faliure, particularly with projects that are underfunded, underdeveloped, and poorly managed (see the Endangered Species Act). Kraft's greater point is that even beyond the failure of the system to establish legislation with teeth, the lack of attention and resources for environmental issues in the US suffers many malfunctions with program evaluation.
What's important here is not that many local victories are beginning to occur. While that is important, what Speth and Kraft demonstrate this week is that there are a number of great contradictions in the US (and world) governmental system in regards to progress towards a more sustainable world.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Open Space, Green Space, and Land Conservation
The readings tie in well together this week to bring up a very important point. In Mazmanian and Kraft, we read about movements across the country to improve, expand, and manage our open spaces. Furthermore, we also learn that all tasks concerning the sustainability of these spaces fluctuates, often in accordance with population density, urban vs. rural areas, and socioeconomic levels in communities.
In Kraft, we explored the various missing components that leave many evaluations of environmental policies incomplete or unreliable. Some policies (like Clean Air) have easily measured progress since their enactment, while others (like those concerning park usage and sustainability) suffer from loopholes where measurements provided still do not accurately demonstrate progress.
So, as proposed by Mazmanian and Kraft, I began to understand that many places across the country are working towards preserving their current open/green spaces and making sure that further development is discouraged or highly monitored. Yet, the success of many policies concerning these open spaces are on the local level. Herein lies what seems to be the most salient point in this week's readings: Top-down policy from Federal to local has become extremely difficult. As Kraft points out in chapter 7, there are an abundance of studies/evaluations the recommend new regulations on all sorts of environmental threats, with conclusions that are widely supported. They are hung up, however, in Congress, where legislators cannot agree on how to rewrite statutes.
So, we are left with encouragement for action on a local level, because it works and works almost immediately whereas federal legislation concerning the environment these days is often far too overarching and overachieving to be realistically passed with its original intent. What irks me about this though, is that the combination of readings in my perspective begin to suggest that federal legislation is near worthless (at least in the present) and it really shouldn't be. Government should be responsible for setting a good example in environmental policy. It is good that local governments have been effective (as have many private/public partnerships), but the government needs to take a hint from the actions occurring across the country.
Where the government can step in, is in more densely populated areas that do not have the same level of affluence that many towns and small cities achieve in suburban areas. Following the lead of the towns that have taken it upon themselves to preserve open/green space, the federal and state governments could help facilitate the same sorts of partnerships. Thus policy would be dictated by the people and not by the people in power, but perhaps here this is a necessary step for this particular issue.
In Kraft, we explored the various missing components that leave many evaluations of environmental policies incomplete or unreliable. Some policies (like Clean Air) have easily measured progress since their enactment, while others (like those concerning park usage and sustainability) suffer from loopholes where measurements provided still do not accurately demonstrate progress.
So, as proposed by Mazmanian and Kraft, I began to understand that many places across the country are working towards preserving their current open/green spaces and making sure that further development is discouraged or highly monitored. Yet, the success of many policies concerning these open spaces are on the local level. Herein lies what seems to be the most salient point in this week's readings: Top-down policy from Federal to local has become extremely difficult. As Kraft points out in chapter 7, there are an abundance of studies/evaluations the recommend new regulations on all sorts of environmental threats, with conclusions that are widely supported. They are hung up, however, in Congress, where legislators cannot agree on how to rewrite statutes.
So, we are left with encouragement for action on a local level, because it works and works almost immediately whereas federal legislation concerning the environment these days is often far too overarching and overachieving to be realistically passed with its original intent. What irks me about this though, is that the combination of readings in my perspective begin to suggest that federal legislation is near worthless (at least in the present) and it really shouldn't be. Government should be responsible for setting a good example in environmental policy. It is good that local governments have been effective (as have many private/public partnerships), but the government needs to take a hint from the actions occurring across the country.
Where the government can step in, is in more densely populated areas that do not have the same level of affluence that many towns and small cities achieve in suburban areas. Following the lead of the towns that have taken it upon themselves to preserve open/green space, the federal and state governments could help facilitate the same sorts of partnerships. Thus policy would be dictated by the people and not by the people in power, but perhaps here this is a necessary step for this particular issue.
Monday, September 28, 2009
What's up with Waxman/Markey? And what about Cap and Trade?
What does it actually do? Why is it so monumental? Who supports it? What is there to fight about?
So: it comes as a relief to many environmental enthusiasts that bills like Waxman/Markey and Van Hollen have finally made their way to the floor of congress. The same as any other hotly contested issue, these bills have met an extreme amount of media attention and many arguments have risen concerning how each policy in the bills is implemented, the philosophies of both, and exactly how the legislation could possibly affect the economy.
Even broader than the issues of implementing these policies (if and when they're voted through Congress) is the stress imposed on US policymakers to take action in the face of the approaching global summit on climate change in Copenhagen this December. The US and China have been identified as -globally- emitting 40% of the world's CO2 emissions. So we have to do something, but what do we do, and is it right?
Fighting over which bill begins at their stated and summarized goals. Both bills seek to reduce carbon emissions by nearly 85% by 2050, using the same incremental reductions in the same year periods. The bills start to differ in who to reduce these emissions:
From Mike Sandler on the Huffington Post:
Waxman-Markey contains several sections (titles) that set renewable energy standards, change fuel composition, set automobile and land use planning requirements similar to California's AB1493 and SB375, and more. The bill could also result in pre-empting regional climate programs currently under development such as the Western Climate Initiative. What it doesn't do, is say who will shoulder the costs implied in making fossil fuels more expensive. Van Hollen's bill, by contrast, does only one thing, but it's the most important thing: making polluters pay and returning the money to consumers. Waxman-Markey will work its way through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, while Van Hollen will start at the House Ways and Means Committee, since it involves distributing revenues from the sale of emission permits, which is essentially money. It's possible that at some point the two bills could be combined.
Length alone, Waxman certainly is the greater waste of trees; it's 600 pages to Van Hollen's 20 pages. However, Van Hollen's bill has yet to garner as much public support (according to GovTrack), while Waxman's bill has made headlines and drawn a lot of media attention...the only downside to this being that it has also dragged in a healthy dose of naysayers. Perhaps the Waxman bill is more comprehensive, but when looking over the summary on GovTrack, it becomes clear that the shear magnitude of the bill and all the tasks therein, the EPA is going to have a hefty dose of new standards to implement when it already deals with such a massive amount of enforcing....
What makes me worry now is how little we know about carbon capture programs and their environmental impact...plenty of science exists on either side of the issue, but how are we supposed to know what it will do before we try? If the Earth is already changing rapidly because of everything else we're doing, it seems like strategies should be focused on converting waste and reusing it, rather than the age-old tradition of packing it up and putting it away forever...even though carbon is natural, burying it thousands of feet down doesn't change the fact that its basically still a human-made dumping ground.
So: it comes as a relief to many environmental enthusiasts that bills like Waxman/Markey and Van Hollen have finally made their way to the floor of congress. The same as any other hotly contested issue, these bills have met an extreme amount of media attention and many arguments have risen concerning how each policy in the bills is implemented, the philosophies of both, and exactly how the legislation could possibly affect the economy.
Even broader than the issues of implementing these policies (if and when they're voted through Congress) is the stress imposed on US policymakers to take action in the face of the approaching global summit on climate change in Copenhagen this December. The US and China have been identified as -globally- emitting 40% of the world's CO2 emissions. So we have to do something, but what do we do, and is it right?
Fighting over which bill begins at their stated and summarized goals. Both bills seek to reduce carbon emissions by nearly 85% by 2050, using the same incremental reductions in the same year periods. The bills start to differ in who to reduce these emissions:
From Mike Sandler on the Huffington Post:
Waxman-Markey contains several sections (titles) that set renewable energy standards, change fuel composition, set automobile and land use planning requirements similar to California's AB1493 and SB375, and more. The bill could also result in pre-empting regional climate programs currently under development such as the Western Climate Initiative. What it doesn't do, is say who will shoulder the costs implied in making fossil fuels more expensive. Van Hollen's bill, by contrast, does only one thing, but it's the most important thing: making polluters pay and returning the money to consumers. Waxman-Markey will work its way through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, while Van Hollen will start at the House Ways and Means Committee, since it involves distributing revenues from the sale of emission permits, which is essentially money. It's possible that at some point the two bills could be combined.
Length alone, Waxman certainly is the greater waste of trees; it's 600 pages to Van Hollen's 20 pages. However, Van Hollen's bill has yet to garner as much public support (according to GovTrack), while Waxman's bill has made headlines and drawn a lot of media attention...the only downside to this being that it has also dragged in a healthy dose of naysayers. Perhaps the Waxman bill is more comprehensive, but when looking over the summary on GovTrack, it becomes clear that the shear magnitude of the bill and all the tasks therein, the EPA is going to have a hefty dose of new standards to implement when it already deals with such a massive amount of enforcing....
What makes me worry now is how little we know about carbon capture programs and their environmental impact...plenty of science exists on either side of the issue, but how are we supposed to know what it will do before we try? If the Earth is already changing rapidly because of everything else we're doing, it seems like strategies should be focused on converting waste and reusing it, rather than the age-old tradition of packing it up and putting it away forever...even though carbon is natural, burying it thousands of feet down doesn't change the fact that its basically still a human-made dumping ground.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Clean Air and Water Acts and Kraft's Epochs
Progress in environmental policy is possible. Mazmanian and Kraft illustrate this in this week's readings. This is a striking improvement from past readings, many of which have cited the passing of legislation in the 1970s as a great start to a set of initiatives that eventually lost steam, deteriorating into the present, where our initiatives just don't cut the environment-saving mustard.
Both in Wisconsin's Fox River Basin and in Los Angeles, efforts to improve water and air respectively have made major headway in monumental problems, only to still suffer rising standards and greater pressure from environmental movements both local and national. Still, what is important are the giant leaps in initial cleanup and prevention, and then the necessary moves away from command-and-control regulation towards collaborative sustainable methods. In between lies the rather dense system of market incentives (the "second epoch"), however, at least in Los Angeles this system came with a number of setbacks to environmental progression as stringent legislation was relaxed.
In Wisconsin, efforts to clean up the Fox River Basin ran into a wall with their first attempts at collaborative methods, but what is most important is that the methods weren't given up on at the first sign of opposition. As Mazmanian and Kraft point out, efforts in Wisconsin showed that a cross-section of industries and municipalities could come together and share their resources to create a cleaner basin. The success (to a degree) of these efforts, should be a signal to other areas of the country facing serious pollution issues.
In Los Angeles, standards of living (and consequently local politics and industry) create a large wall blocking greater progression into sustainable efforts. As the authors point out, further progression towards cleaner air would mean great changes in the transportation habits of Angelinos...unfortunately this seems often the case in heavily polluted areas.
The trouble in Los Angeles demarcates a line of status quo that is not impassable, but still serves as the greatest barrier toward the necessary improvements in clean air. It is the status quo that many residents find comfortable and thus it is the job of many politicians to keep that status quo...in other words, let people keep driving to work by themselves and sitting in hours of traffic with their cars and air conditioners running. But, changes are being made in many other places toward more sustainable activities, and soon enough, if industry is convinced, the changes will be necessitated. At the very least, Los Angeles will have to choose its fate: impose change collectively with the knowledge that individual sacrifice will benefit all, or be satisfied with remaining a very polluted place while other initiatives across the country succeed and move forward.
Both in Wisconsin's Fox River Basin and in Los Angeles, efforts to improve water and air respectively have made major headway in monumental problems, only to still suffer rising standards and greater pressure from environmental movements both local and national. Still, what is important are the giant leaps in initial cleanup and prevention, and then the necessary moves away from command-and-control regulation towards collaborative sustainable methods. In between lies the rather dense system of market incentives (the "second epoch"), however, at least in Los Angeles this system came with a number of setbacks to environmental progression as stringent legislation was relaxed.
In Wisconsin, efforts to clean up the Fox River Basin ran into a wall with their first attempts at collaborative methods, but what is most important is that the methods weren't given up on at the first sign of opposition. As Mazmanian and Kraft point out, efforts in Wisconsin showed that a cross-section of industries and municipalities could come together and share their resources to create a cleaner basin. The success (to a degree) of these efforts, should be a signal to other areas of the country facing serious pollution issues.
In Los Angeles, standards of living (and consequently local politics and industry) create a large wall blocking greater progression into sustainable efforts. As the authors point out, further progression towards cleaner air would mean great changes in the transportation habits of Angelinos...unfortunately this seems often the case in heavily polluted areas.
The trouble in Los Angeles demarcates a line of status quo that is not impassable, but still serves as the greatest barrier toward the necessary improvements in clean air. It is the status quo that many residents find comfortable and thus it is the job of many politicians to keep that status quo...in other words, let people keep driving to work by themselves and sitting in hours of traffic with their cars and air conditioners running. But, changes are being made in many other places toward more sustainable activities, and soon enough, if industry is convinced, the changes will be necessitated. At the very least, Los Angeles will have to choose its fate: impose change collectively with the knowledge that individual sacrifice will benefit all, or be satisfied with remaining a very polluted place while other initiatives across the country succeed and move forward.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Lipschutz on Environmental Politics and Social Structure
The perspective offered by Ronnie D. Lipschutz in part of this week's reading is both fresh and engaging; overall, very enjoyable to read. Lipschutz seems to have encountered a problem we talk about in every class period, how to affect social change and what structures are blocking the way...for without social change, we have said in class, global changes benefiting the environment seem like a still-distant dream.
What was most striking about encountering Lipschutz's thesis is that he actually called out our social institutions and structures. While he repeatedly points out that our institutions are not inherently wrong, they are harmful to the environment, even though some of them exist solely to protect and conserve it. It is the capitalist perspective which encourages behavior that becomes harmful and unsustainable and if we are choosing to help the environment and slow its deterioration, we need to rethink how we live our lives on a daily basis.
Lipschutz seems to almost say that while there are a number of environmental threats, one wouldn't have to think twice about them if society hadn't already decided for us that saving the environment was critical to our survival. However, since that is a path that policymakers and citizens have chosen, he begins to explain what social roadblocks exist, and how it is exactly that we continue to fail with environmental reform. It is both a valuable and appreciable goal for Lipschutz to take on the explanation of why none of the proposed solutions have been implemented and then go ahead and point fingers at policymakers.
Still, while I believe that Lipschutz is right in saying that politics and institutions of power block the sensible progression forward into sustainability and conservation, I like his closing points in the chapter better than any. He reminds us that while it is important to remember that each of us is part a larger earthly whole, that we can only experience so much of this Earth at any given time. Thus, the most logical thing to do to start with change is to work on one's local environmental impact (he is supporting the adage think globally, act locally). To take this point one step further, I believe as a student of Political Science, that truly the strongest influence on a politician is an overwhelming cry for change from his or her constituency. All the bribes and lobbyists in the world couldn't take a policy maker's ear away from such a shout (unless they're purely evil and/or consumed by their power). Politicians, especially local ones, owe their jobs and lifestyles to the people the put them in office (at least in this country), so public outrage and action are very good ways of reminding a person in a politically powerful seat of who put them there (not to mention triggering a sincere pang of guilt).
What was most striking about encountering Lipschutz's thesis is that he actually called out our social institutions and structures. While he repeatedly points out that our institutions are not inherently wrong, they are harmful to the environment, even though some of them exist solely to protect and conserve it. It is the capitalist perspective which encourages behavior that becomes harmful and unsustainable and if we are choosing to help the environment and slow its deterioration, we need to rethink how we live our lives on a daily basis.
Lipschutz seems to almost say that while there are a number of environmental threats, one wouldn't have to think twice about them if society hadn't already decided for us that saving the environment was critical to our survival. However, since that is a path that policymakers and citizens have chosen, he begins to explain what social roadblocks exist, and how it is exactly that we continue to fail with environmental reform. It is both a valuable and appreciable goal for Lipschutz to take on the explanation of why none of the proposed solutions have been implemented and then go ahead and point fingers at policymakers.
Still, while I believe that Lipschutz is right in saying that politics and institutions of power block the sensible progression forward into sustainability and conservation, I like his closing points in the chapter better than any. He reminds us that while it is important to remember that each of us is part a larger earthly whole, that we can only experience so much of this Earth at any given time. Thus, the most logical thing to do to start with change is to work on one's local environmental impact (he is supporting the adage think globally, act locally). To take this point one step further, I believe as a student of Political Science, that truly the strongest influence on a politician is an overwhelming cry for change from his or her constituency. All the bribes and lobbyists in the world couldn't take a policy maker's ear away from such a shout (unless they're purely evil and/or consumed by their power). Politicians, especially local ones, owe their jobs and lifestyles to the people the put them in office (at least in this country), so public outrage and action are very good ways of reminding a person in a politically powerful seat of who put them there (not to mention triggering a sincere pang of guilt).
Monday, September 7, 2009
Week One: Contemplating the Abyss
After finishing the excerpt from Speth's book and somewhere into the first chapter of Kraft's Environmental Policy and Politics, I found myself in a familiar state of mind. A dark cloud, bursting with heavy drops of depression and doom, hung over my desk.
I have been developing a strong distaste for the drastic and lucrative language of death and destruction that often accompanies such materials. While I agree that these problems are serious, current, and require immediate action, the immense flooding of these facts about the deterioration of Eath's environment has snowballed into sensory overload. The consequence of such large informational storms is often apathy, an emotion too often equated with my generation.
Therefore, it was with particular appreciation that I read through Toward Sustainable Communities (Mazmanian and Kraft), which shifted focus from the various crises overtaking the globe into a discussion about the development of policy to counteract these destructive and threatening changes. TSC shed light on US regulation without accusing with an open-ended bias the failures of the command and control system. Yes, each epoch that Mazmanian and Kraft identify displays a developmental shift, and each incorporates a healthy dose of criticism toward its contemporaries, but where TSC succeeded with me was here:
Where Kraft and Speth had both called for a public discussion on how and why to improve current policy failures and also how to combat the many environmental problems, they failed to discuss themselves. I interpreted TSC to have a conscience...Mazmanian and Kraft do list the undeniable progress the EPA made in the 1970s, but they made a point to also include the implications of such a large and tough bureaucratic agency in attempting to constantly adapt and regulate a growing number of environmental challenges. This is the conscience that the other readings call for, yet fail to fully implement. Speth’s chapter, while informative, assumed a degree of doom that was irreversible, even if he personally maintains hope. Kraft as well, dedicated much of his first two chapters to an outline of pressing issues by the numbers, which, when read closely, spell out doom just as much as Speth’s prose.
I have been developing a strong distaste for the drastic and lucrative language of death and destruction that often accompanies such materials. While I agree that these problems are serious, current, and require immediate action, the immense flooding of these facts about the deterioration of Eath's environment has snowballed into sensory overload. The consequence of such large informational storms is often apathy, an emotion too often equated with my generation.
Therefore, it was with particular appreciation that I read through Toward Sustainable Communities (Mazmanian and Kraft), which shifted focus from the various crises overtaking the globe into a discussion about the development of policy to counteract these destructive and threatening changes. TSC shed light on US regulation without accusing with an open-ended bias the failures of the command and control system. Yes, each epoch that Mazmanian and Kraft identify displays a developmental shift, and each incorporates a healthy dose of criticism toward its contemporaries, but where TSC succeeded with me was here:
Where Kraft and Speth had both called for a public discussion on how and why to improve current policy failures and also how to combat the many environmental problems, they failed to discuss themselves. I interpreted TSC to have a conscience...Mazmanian and Kraft do list the undeniable progress the EPA made in the 1970s, but they made a point to also include the implications of such a large and tough bureaucratic agency in attempting to constantly adapt and regulate a growing number of environmental challenges. This is the conscience that the other readings call for, yet fail to fully implement. Speth’s chapter, while informative, assumed a degree of doom that was irreversible, even if he personally maintains hope. Kraft as well, dedicated much of his first two chapters to an outline of pressing issues by the numbers, which, when read closely, spell out doom just as much as Speth’s prose.
Critically speaking, while all the facts and numbers about the crises the Eath is currently facing are important, the information overload the public receives about these problems every day can have a negative effect. TSC’s approach to reflecting on past and present policies and processes in light of the changing environmental challenges was inherently (and personally) more encouraging.
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