ENVS 50 - Environmental Problem Analysis and Policy Formulation

Ecologists, like other scientists, have for decades debated their role in society. While some have argued that ecologists should participate in environmental politics, others have focused their attention strictly on scientific issues. In Ecologists and Environmental Politics Stephen Bocking explores this debate by recounting the history of ecology in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada since the 1940s. Bocking tells this history through four case studies. By comparing these case studies, Bocking demonstrates how the places of contemporary science--laboratories, landscapes, and funding agencies--and science's purposes, as expressed through the political roles of expertise and specific managerial and regulatory responsibilities, have shaped contemporary ecology and its application to pressing environmental problems.

Evidence of climate change, resource shortages and biodiversity loss is growing in significance year by year. This second edition of Environmental Policy explains how policy can respond and bring about greater sustainability in individual lifestyles, corporate strategies, national policies and international relations. The book discusses the interaction between environmental and human systems, proposing environmental policy as a way to steer human systems to function within environmental constraints. ...

The contributors to this volume focus on the political and value issues that, in their shared view, underlie the global environmental crisis facing us today. They argue that only by transforming our dominant values, social institutions and way of living can we avoid ecological disaster.

Politics and the Environment has established itself as one of the most comprehensive textbooks in this area. This new edition has been completely revised and updated. This text is designed to introduce students to the key concepts and issues which surround environmental problems and their political solutions. ...

Environmental ethics focuses on questions concerning how we ought to inhabit the world; what constitutes a good life or a good society; and who, where, or what merits moral standing. The field emerged most significantly in the 1960s from an increasing awareness of the global environmental condition, although its multiple roots stretch back through the conservation legacy of Roosevelt and Leopold, the transcendentalism of Thoreau and Muir, a growing wilderness movement, insights from the ecological sciences and their precursors, and 19th-century Arcadian sentiments. ...

Environmental assessment (EA) is the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed action on the environment, and identifying ways to manage potentially adverse consequences while creating or enhancing positive ones, such that informed decisions can be made about the acceptability of an action. EA originated from the US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969, which became law in 1970.

Although manifestly not a state, the European Union (EU) has evolved from its origins as a trade-based economic organization to become a supra-national political body that regulates across multiple policy sectors in a state-like manner. Nowhere is this regulatory influence more pronounced than in relation to the environment, where the EU now effectively determines the national policy of its member states in areas as diverse as air quality, water pollution, habitat protection, and genetically modified organisms. ...

The world is caught in the mesh of a series of environmental crises. So far attempts at resolving the deep basis of these have been superficial and disorganized. Global Political Ecology links the political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of a series of environmental disasters and failed attempts at environmental policies.

We have entered an age of disruption. Financial collapse, climate change, resource depletion, and a growing gap between rich and poor are but a few of the signs. Otto Scharmer and Katrin Kaufer ask, why do we collectively create results nobody wants? Meeting the challenges of this century requires updating our economic logic and operating system from an obsolete "ego-system" focused entirely on the well-being of oneself to an eco-system awareness that emphasizes the well-being of the whole. ...

Canada and the United States share a border that spans several of the world's major watersheds and encompasses the largest reserves of fresh water on the planet. The border that separates these two neighbors is political, but the natural environment is a matter of common concern. In recent years, dramatic changes have taken place in the political and environmental landscapes that shape the conversations, possibilities, and processes associated with the management of this shared interest. More than ever, Indigenous populations are recognized to be a necessary part of negotiations and decision-making regarding matters ranging from pipelines to the protection of endangered species' habitats. ...