POLS 346, Environmental Politics and Policy, Spring 2012

The Assignments Page

The Last Things. Please read the New Yorker piece by Michael Specter, The Climate Fixers. What more would you want to know about climate engineering? We discussed security issues as connected to foreign policy concerns. Here is a review of a book that your President was seen carrying, a book written by Mitt Romney’s top foreign policy advisor. The author of the review is perhaps the best analyst of such things, in the view of your professor. Finally, the author of Omnivore’s Dilemma wrote this piece on how he chooses food, and this piece on how change will come to our food system.

Monday, May 14. Read the following entries, and be prepared to discuss them in class. You will be asked to use the material in an essay for Wednesday.

· Dr. James Hansen makes his case for the significance of Canada’s tar sands development.

· Story about intelligent use of a variety of features to increase use of solar power.

· Here is a bit of edgy commentary on next month’s Earth Summit, lamenting the lack of public discourse. Is it plausible that something has decisively changed in our politics that accounts for the present malaise? One possibility is an argument found in the essay in Sakai, wolin_review_johnson.docx. According to the argument, what is the status of your citizenship? Are there any hints on what to do about it? Readers might be interested to the similarity to an older argument by Jacque Ellul, summarized here. (The book is long out of print.)

Wednesday, May 16. Bring to class a paper version of an answer to this question: Is politics likely to be an important part of your life? Your answer should draw upon course material whenever possible, and engage the arguments from our readings on Monday. Limit yourself to 600 words.

Monday, May 7— V 14.  China.  Reading questions for Chapter 14: (bring notes for the bold-faced items)

1. Here is a blog post by the author of the chapter, on Water issues in China. (In the entry there is a link to the Choke Point China series from Circle of Blue.

2. Check some of the NGOs and people listed in the chapter and in the links at the end. The NRDC China program, Probe International and the World Wildlife Fund China appear to be the most active; The CLAPV appears dormant; Ma Jun’s IPE appears to be regularly doing things; Wu Lihong is out of prison now, low on the radar screen after being mistreated while jailed; Yu Xiaogang’s organization is called Yunnan Green Watershed, and it is active mostly in monitoring; Greenpeace China is now Greenpeace East Asia, in part because they have offices in Taiwan and, soon, Korea… they don’t post many entries about China, although notice the active story on pesticides in Chinese tea; ChinaDialogue is still posting occasional news stories about environmental issues in China; and the New York Times maintains a gateway page for environmental news about China. And Human Rights Watch has posted several recent articles on environmental issues and on the current suppression of dissent.

3. Several of the entries on the links in #2 above tell a story of a current crackdown on political dissent. Does the chapter or the blog entry linked in #1 above offer an interpretation of such a crackdown?

4. As you go through the chapter, identify and bring notes to class on the most interesting or problematic claims.

5. One persistent claim throughout the chapter is that the incentives faced by local officials and company managers are all wrong, from an environmental point of view. How clear are the author’s suggestions for getting the incentives right?

6. In Sakai, see the report, China_Lieberthal_Jisi.pdf, read the executive summary. How China handles its environmental issues is part of US security concerns, the subject of our next class. Are the recommendations in this report consistent with the suggestions referred to in the previous question?

As an additional resource for those interested, here is an extensive book length collection of essays about China and environmental concerns is here, courtesy of the Wilson Center.

Wednesday, May 9— V. 15.  Security issues. 

· The international crisis group has been working on the relationship between climate change and conflict for some time.

· The US Military has many people working on some variant of ‘going green.’ DOD also has an office of Installations and Environment.

· A year ago President Obama gave a speech about the new “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future.” Using the classification scheme for approaches to environmental security in VK chapter15, what scenario does this document appear to follow? You may be interested in a report issued about the time the chapter was written, “Powering America’s Defense,” authored by a panel of retired military officials.

Reading questions for Chapter 15:

1. What does environmental security mean?

2. What is the scarcity-conflict thesis? Is it convincing?

3. How did the Bush administration respond to earlier work on security and environment in US defense organizations?

4. The author claims, at p. 343, that it makes sense to work toward “scenario 4.” What does this mean? Can you give a couple of examples of policies that pursue this direction?

Monday, April 30—Environmental Justice. Read VK, Ch. 11. Environmental justice is emphasized only when there is strong political support for it. One expert assessed the situation several years ago in these remarks. Since the election of 2008, things have changed. Here is the EPA’s web page on Environmental Justice, and their page on planning to incorporate EJ into more policies. The overview of their planning is here. What is the status of the planning process? Here is one response by the Defense Department on their own EJ issues. Clearly, in a large department one has to issue directive that guide planning. Note the tentative nature of the plans, and expressed doubts about the likelihood of funding for these efforts. How is the Dept. of Transportation handling EJ? Be prepared to share your notes on these.

Questions for VK, Ch. 11.

1. The author advances a claim just above the subtitle on p. 246. Is it convincing? Why or why not?

2. Be prepared to discuss the implications of table 11-1 on p. 249.

3. The author discussing the forces behind urban sprawl on pp. 252-4. Is the analysis convincing?

4. The many brief references to examples on pp. 254-8, include some items we have heard about Seattle and Portland. What is the overall message of the author with regard to these examples?

Also for today,  for those who want another set of eyes on your papers, bring what you have completed to class Monday, and we can devote some time at the end to reading each others' papers and discussing issues.  

Wednesday, May 2. Your papers on interest groups are Due. Thank you for your work on these. Today’s topic is VK Ch. 13.  Population & development.  (1) Here is the webpage of the Population Environment Research Network. What do they do? Here is a paper produced by a group their scholars who looked at the relationship between population and sustainable development. Note their recommendations. (2) While this paper is difficult to read if you haven’t yet had your stat class, examine it for the problem it discusses and its conclusions—Why have the poor failed to catch up? (3) Here is the World Bank’s summary of its 2010 World Development Report. (approx. 25 pages of text). Compare its focus with that of this essay on the idea of agro-imperialism. (4) VK, Ch. 13 is a competent summary of population and development issues, when coupled with some serious questions about worldwide energy policies. Here is an assessment by Peter Maas, who wrote a book about the world oil system. He also wrote a piece about the cost of keeping the oil flowing our way. In chapter 13, what are the five most interest claims you read? Bring a list to class.

Monday, April 23— Economic analysis and environmental policy (II).

One way to understand risk is to look at the bitter experience from a recent human induced disaster. What does it tell us about risk? (in about 300 words)

Benefit cost analysis and related techniques are a regular part of environmental policy discussions. You need to become an intelligent consumer and critic, which requires learning the vocabulary. The EPA has a web site on their use of the techniques in their rulemaking process. They call it the National Center for Environmental Economics. They include their guide to conducting benefit-cost analysis. Use the table of contents to find the sections (table of contents has hot links) on (1) how they measure benefits, (2) how they measure costs, (3) how they discount, and (4) how they take distributional effects into account. Also, see their page on (5) value of a statistical life, or mortality risk valuation [Recall the earlier class discussion on reading tactics for such documents—we are looking for the concepts here.] WRITE a brief paragraph for each of these points, and include enough detail to describe how one actually measures each of them. Here is a brief outline of the concepts applied to the costs of the oil spill, from Resources for the Future.

Economics majors and those who have taken one of the Environmental Economics courses should see the EPA’s discussion paper on issues in valuing risk.

Wednesday, April 25—V 10.  Is a green economy possible? Your text chapter offers a brief history of this idea, and a description of some different approaches. Are the authors optimistic that will build a “green economy”?

Here is a report from NRDC, working with others, about a bill that would shift energy subsidies to a more sustainable direction. Resources for the Future did a study of energy policies to respond to climate change (See p. 14 of the document for a table comparing policy alternatives…. the full report is here). Here is a list of the policy options considered in the report. Assuming the estimates in these documents are accurate, what policy changes are needed to produce any ten of the changes you find most interesting? Do this in about a page, bring to class. Here is an account of international efforts to address the green economy goal.

Monday, Apr. 16. Today is Tax Day. Natural resource policies, and GIS applications.   Read VK, Chapter 8. The authors are quite critical of Bush administration policies. Why has “collaborative management” become the new model for natural resource policies? What does the evidence suggest about its effectiveness? Also see the articles in the resources section of Sakai, spill_scandal_president.doc, and green_to_the_gills.doc. Write a brief abstract for each.  

Students should be acquiring GIS skills (Geographic Information Systems), digital mapping. It is everywhere—police departments tracking crimes, local governments keeping track of infrastructure, international groups documenting resources and events, parties attempting to influence legislative redistricting, etc. Put GIS on your list of things to explore. Here is a page with some illustrations of what is being added to Google Earth (probably the GIS application you have heard most about). Here is a page of GIS links which features its use in various environmental applications, including Washington State government agencies. We will explore some of these in class.

Earth Day for 2012 is April 22, a Sunday. PLU participates in Earth Day this year with a public talk (with question and answer afterwards), April 17, 2012
7:30 p.m., in the Scandinavian Cultural Center. Dr. Michael Pavel will talk about
"Connecting to Everything on Earth: Its Land, Waters, and Peoples (Plant, Animal, and Human)." Attend this, and write up a one-page reflection on anything about the talk you find worthy of commentary or analysis, and bring it to class in writing on the 18^th. For this voluntary activity you will receive the equivalent of two of the turned-in homework assignments during the semester. This is bound to be interesting, and some of you really need this.

Wednesday, Apr. 18— V 9. Economic analysis I. Reading Questions for Vig & Kraft, Chapter 9 (bring your notes, we will go through these):

1. Note there are concepts with particular definitions—efficient, cost-effective, opportunity costs, marginal benefit, marginal cost, revealed preference, externalities, public goods, hedonic, and more. If you are not familiar with these concepts, you will need to keep careful notes on what the author does with them. And remember: symbolic notation is simply a quick way to refer to a concept—the important thing is the concept.

2. In Figure 9-1 on p. 199, what does Q* represent?

3. Should public policy questions be settled through the use of benefit/cost analysis? 200

4. How were the data produced to make Figure 9-2, p. 201?

5. According to the author, what are the main limits on the measurement of environmental costs and benefits? 202-4

6. Why are tradable permits used to pursue some emission control problems? 205-6

7. The author says that “serious discussion of a global carbon tax is lacking.” (209) Does she suggest why this is the case?

8. Here is an application of the concepts used in this chapter, about how to go forward with ‘decarbonizing’ the energy sector (from Resources for the Future). That page includes a reference to this paper, on possible alternatives to a carbon tax.

Monday, Apr. 9— Politics of Food Safety II: the chemicals connection.  Examine this web page about the EU’s REACH system. Here is the executive summary of a study comparing US, EU, and CA chemical regulation systems. In less than a full page, describe the chief differences among the three, focusing on the organization of authority. The links on that page take you to the following: Slides to accompany a presentation by the report author, and the 142 pg. full report is here. (It also contains the executive summary, the 15-page version.).

And, for your enjoyment, here are a couple of recent NYT stories, about arsenic in your chicken (with a mention of an antibiotics issue) and about a proposed regulatory reform in the USDA about chicken.

More enjoyment: Let Your Kids Get Dirty. Especially your daughters.

Wednesday, Apr. 11— Reports of findings on groups are due, and will be discussed. Bring to class a 1-page summary of your major findings.  We will devote some class time to discussing these.  Also, bring to class the first complete page or two of your paper.  These pages will be your actual first pages, not a brief version of your entire paper. They will demonstrate your application of the paper criteria. You will read the work of some of your peers.

Monday, April 2. Welcome back from Spring Break. We take a different look at the EPA today. Read pp. 3-12 [the numbered pages] of the report in Sakai, “epa_phthalates.pdf.” Also read pp. 3-14 [also the numbered pages] of the report in Sakai, “epa_science_decisions.pdf.” Write out responses to these questions:

· What does the first report say about the problem of phthalates?

· What does the first report say about the way the EPA evaluates risks from phthalates?

· Does the first report follow or endorse the findings of the second report?

· Is Congress likely to support the EPA going in these new recommended directions?

Have a little patience with these reports. How we conceive of a problem has a great deal to do with what we do about it.

late addition: A NYT story involving the EPA, related to the documents above.

Wednesday, April 4. The Politics of Food Safety. Here is a very recent report on food safety oversight from the General Accountability Office. We will discuss its recommendations. Note this is the most recent of many reports…. Here is one from 21 years ago discussing many of the same problems. In Sakai, see the review of the recent food safety act, “2010_Act_Analysis.pdf.” Did the 2010 Act address the problems noted in the two reports?

Monday, March 19. Tomorrow is the First day of Spring. Today is our session on the involvement of groups in the policy process. You have become members in one of the following panels:

--International focus

--National groups with a land use focus

--National groups with a resource focus

--Regional groups with a Western Washington focus

--Regional groups with other foci

On Monday we will hear from each panel. They will answer the following questions, using a format of their own choosing, and taking a maximum of 20 minutes each. You will be cut off at 20 minutes, so please organize your presentations accordingly.

--How are these groups involved in the policy process?

--To what effect are they involved in the policy process?

--What data are still needed for you to complete your projects?

An additional matter: This is a scientists who made a big, big difference, belongs almost up there with Rachel Carson.

Wednesday, March 21. The EPA (and some other agencies). Read VK, Chapter 7.

VK Chapter 7 questions (please make sure you can answer these):

1. The ‘prelude’ section, pp. 148-9, describes some of the ways politics and science collide in making policy. What is the author’s interpretation of Stephen Johnson’s conduct in handling these forces? Some summary comments about this are on 166-7.

2. Why does the EPA have so many responsibilities? (151-3) On page 149, the second item on that bulleted list refers to this report from the National Academy of Sciences. There is a blue button to click that downloads the report, for free. Read the summary, and save this for the upcoming unit where we will examine risk assessment. Note this report is from 2007, and the scientists’ report suggests that political officials have taken some steps that were unwarranted.

3. Make a list of the features of policymaking described in this chapter, pp. 155-8.

4. For further development on the California waiver request, see the EPA page on the topic, and this timeline (reads from the bottom up) from Pew Climate.

Here are some recent events involving the EPA, which give us a taste of the variety of issues they are involved with:

--The EPA published a searchable online interactive map of major greenhouse gas emitters. Some members of Congress complained. For class today, check out an area you care about—where are the major emitters? If you like this, you might also be interested in the NRDC’s interactive site on the 100 biggest emitters in the USA.

--An editorial about their interactions with California over clean air rules

--A suit by 11 states over the delays in the EPA rules about soot

--A story about a movement to get copper out of break pad linings

--There is a case before the Supreme Court that asks about ripeness—when can property owners challenge a developing EPA concern with their land use practices? Note this small case has large implications.

Monday, March 12— V&K, Chapter 6.  Courts in environmental policy (I).  In addition to the chapter, see the descriptions of cases mentioned in the chapter. The links (below) either are brief summaries of the cases, or opinions from which you only need to read the first part, the “syllabus.” Bring notes to class that you can show to each other.

In chapter Six:

· What is judicial review? Why is it important in environmental policymaking? (128-130)

· Describe these three ideas: standing, ripeness, and standard of review.

· Note each section focuses on an issue that is illustrated by reference to a Supreme Court decision. Among those mentioned are :

o Massachusetts v. EPA.

o Stop the Beach

o Ohio Forestry

o Whitman v. American Trucking

o Sweet Home

o Chevron

o National Homebuilders Association v. Defenders of Wildlife

o Lucas

· Is the author of ch. 6 optimistic about the ability of courts to make important environmental policy decisions?

Wednesday, March 14— Courts in environmental policy (II).  Read the article in Sakai, unregulated_offensive.doc. What is going on? What does the title refer to? More important Supreme Court cases: Please see (1) Dolan, (2) Lujan, (3) Winter v. NRDC, (4) Exxon v. Baker, and (5) Summers.  And, For each of these five cases, write a brief (sentence or two) summary of the significant issue at stake. . 

Here is an outline on the topic of Politics and the US Supreme Court, with illustrations and citations.

Monday, March 5. We will have a workshop on critical perspectives in papers.  You will be asked to bring an annotated outline of your perspective. One way to adopt a critical perspective is to employ concepts that explain something, such as the influence of interest groups, or the importance of values in a particular group’s approach.

Also for today, Read VK Chapter 4, Presidents and environmental politics. After short sections going over presidential powers and criteria for judging the record of presidents, the chapter is mainly a story of how different presidents have been with respect to environmental policy. Why do some emphasize legislation, and others emphasize their administrative powers?  What administrative powers are at the disposal of a President?  Vig is rather critical of some presidents.  Why? How convincing is the evidence offered to support these judgments? Bring notes, be prepared to discuss these with each other in class. Do remember the article from last week, gcc_climate_change_miss.

Wednesday, March 7. The topic is Congress. Read VK As a way of summarizing the chapter, what do you make of this outline? The bottom of the page refers to the “broken branch” argument. Kraft tells us, on p. 102 of chapter 5, that only Congress can reform environmental policy. What are the major claims in the chapter that help you understand that claim, and what Congress is likely to do? Bring these to class, ready to discuss, along with a list of 3 major claims in the chapter you wish to either affirm or contest.

One way to keep track of Congress on environment and energy issues is to look at interest groups, such as NRDC, or PewClimate, or OpenCongress. What is going on in Congress? To get a sense of what is covered in mainstream media, here is the environment page of the New York Times.

Addendum: On January 27 of this year a group of 16 scientists wrote an op-ed piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The piece argued that climate change is not a pressing problem, mainly due to the claim that climate change science was wrong on several important points. Remember, this was after the Berkeley Earth Project (BEP), created as a response to the denial movement, announced its findings. Here is their 2-page summary, other features are linked from their website—they tested the criticisms of a large group of scientists from several fields, and concluded the skeptics’ case was bogus. Now the BEP did not address every single claim of skeptics, just what the scientists agreed were the main ones. But, so to speak, the money was laid on the table, we had the game, and the skeptics lost. So these guys (and they were all guys) with the WSJ article published this piece 3 months after the BEP papers came out. OK, what does such disagreement represent? Here is an appraisal from William Norhaus, whose work was cited (inaccurately ) by the 16 guys. You pick 1,000 scientists in an area, and it is not surprising that 16 disagree with the rest. This is normal. Yet the new normal is extreme partisan journalism, such as in the WSJ, which will publish whatever fits its ideological mission.

Monday, February 28. Climate Policy, day 2.

Read the following articles in Sakai. For each of them, write a paragraph describing what you regard as the most important claims. Be prepared to defend your choices with reference to text evidence.

1. wind_power_issues

2. fracking_mckibben (One study McKibben mentions is described more fully here.)

3. Nordhaus_energy_friend_enemy

4. gcc_climate_change_miss

5. gcc_deniers_mooney

In addition, there is a folder in Sakai entitled GCC Mitigation, a collection of two rather technical papers (plus two other items, described below) whose titles start with “gcc_mitigating,” looking at recent research on the effects of global climate change around the world, and in particular the benefits of some rather simple mitigation efforts using existing technology. This are offered for your viewing. We will briefly refer to them in class.

Also in Sakai GCC_Mitigation folder is the report, RFF_tech_manual_final. Its findings are summarized on pp. 141-7. Please read these pages, and you are welcome to peruse the rest of the report. The policy choices they describe are similar to many of those in the link just below.

The Carbon Mitigation Initiative has a wedges game, where you can pick the policy changes that can take us to a sustainable level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Many of the people working at CMI contributed to the NAS study, in the GCC Mitigation folder, labeled gcc_climate_choices.

Here is the most recent report from the Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Group, at UW.

Also in the class, we will look at the effects of climate change on animals and on people in developing countries.

Wednesday, February 29: The Constitution and Federalism. Please Read VK, chapter 2. Bring any chapter questions to class. Please note (at page 28) that this was written at a time, a short while ago, when states had much better budget positions. What, for example, is happening in recent budget changes for the Washington Department of Ecology? The chapter also suggests, at p. 43, that one measure of the Obama administration’s approach to issues in this chapter could be its response to California’s request for a waiver on emissions policies. One approach to understanding the intergovernmental system for environmental policy is to look at one area: air quality. Here are the websites for:

· National government EPA’s air quality programs, and their AirNow program

· Washington State DOE’s air quality programs

· Puget Sound Clean Air Agency

In 300 words or less, what do each of these do? In what ways do their missions appear to move them toward one goal? In what ways do their missions seem at odds?

Wednesday, February 22. Climate policy. Bring to class a statement describing the interest group you chose for your paper assignment.

Read V, Chapter 12. Identify the hortatory language in the chapter. Should they use it? Bring to class a list of the four major claims you found interesting in the chapter.

--In the Sakai Resources section, read the following:

Climate Change Pragmatism.pdf. Write and bring to class an abstract of the document. Also, choose from the document one statement you wish to affirm, and one statement you wish to contest, and bring these in writing to class.

--The Berkeley Earth Project was created as a response to the denial movement. Here is their 2-page summary, other features are linked from their website. What is their conclusion about human induced climate change? You may wish to compare it to the climate scientists’ amicus brief in Massachusetts v. EPA (2007, in a case where petitioners tried to compel the EPA to begin regulation of greenhouse gases). Wikipedia has a decent page on the case.

--Recently leaked documents offer a look at climate change denial campaign. [Later addition: The culprit confesses.]

--Pew Climate summarized the efforts of businesses and different levels of governments on climate change. (The link is to a summary page on the report; the portions about business and governments’ responses are linked on that page.)

And, this brief story about regulation of oil drilling in the Arctic offers a glimpse at how regulation works.

Late Addition: This story of a report due out Feb. 21 on fine particulate air pollution, perhaps tempering the conclusions in VK Chapter 1.

Monday, February 13: Nuclear Weapons, Infectious Diseases.  Go to the course Sakai site resources section, and read the articles in the week one file: nuke_threat.doc, specter_doomsday.pdf, and easterbrook_sky_is_falling.doc.  Write an abstract for each article, bring it to class along with a list of the three claims you found most interesting in each article. [An abstract is a brief (about 100 words) description of a paper’s “subject, research method, findings, and conclusions.” [from J.E. Aaron, The Little, Brown Compact Handbook, 4^th ed. (Longman, 2001), p. 407. Here are ten examples of abstracts, from various political science articles.]

Wednesday, February 15: V1, The policy process; and V3, Groups and politics.

For chapter 1: How do environmental values operate in the world? Note how institutions matter.  Why do institutions seem more vigorous about environmental policy in some decades than in others?  How do US citizens value environmental protection compared to other things? 

For chapter 3: What is the basis for the authors’ hope that 2007 represented a ‘tipping point’ for concern about climate change? Do a majority of US citizens believe climate change is real and serious? (See this Pew poll for recent data, and this more specialized report, and assess what these data mean for the chapter argument. Do this in writing, about a paragraph.) What do interest groups do, from the view of political science? (61) As you go through the chapter section on interest groups, pp. 61-8, keep track of the concepts used to distinguish different sorts of groups.

Bring notes on these chapter concepts to class.