Assignment Questions - Environmental, Business and Economic
Boludo
QUESTION11.pdf
Objective
Explore environmental policy with
an emphasis on the actors and
values that shape it.
Key content
Environmental and social principles
relating to policy-making
Regulatory, market-based and non-
legislative policy tools.
Environmental policy challenges,
successes and failures
Module overview
1. Humans and the environment
2. Environmental principles
3. Social principles in
environmental policy-making
4. Environmental governance and
participation
5. Fundamentals of sustainability
6. Environmental regulation
7. Environmental issues as market
problems
8. Environment and business
responsibility
9. Climate change policy
10. Climate change ethics
Module overview
Assessment
2 x 3500 word learning journals.
1 question to consider each week.
Critical thinking is key.
1-5 due by 6pm, November 12th
6-10 due by 6pm, January 14th
Assignment clinics:
Lectures 5 and 10.
Humans and the Environment How do people ‘value’ the environment? How do people perceive environmental risk?
Key concepts
▪ Environmental worldviews
▪ Cultural Theory of risk
▪ Political economy of risk
Why does this matter?
If we consider misplaced values and
perceptions as one cause of
environmental problems, we need to
understand theoretical frameworks that
attempt to explain peoples’
relationships with the environment in
order to respond to that.
1. Environmental worldviews
Environmental values, like all psychological and social constructs,
are found ‘within’ human individuals, institutions and societies,
and find expression and representation across all human
activities, relationships, and cultural products.
Reser, J.P. and Bentrupperbäumer, J.M., 2005. What and where are environmental values? Assessing the
impacts of current diversity of use of ‘environmental’and ‘World Heritage’values. Journal of Environmental
Psychology, 25(2), pp.125-146.
Ecocentric The person is not above or
outside of nature. E.g. Deep ecology, eco-feminism.
Biocentric Does not distinguish
between humans and other life on Earth.
Environmental worldviews Commonly shared beliefs that give groups of people a sense of how humans should interact with the environment.
Anthropocentric Humans should manage
Earth's resources for our own benefit. E.g. Planetary management, stewardship,
‘no-problem’.
“…sowing and planting of trees had to
be regarded as a national duty of
every landowner, in order to stop the
destructive over-exploitation of
natural resources…”
John Evelyn (1662), English writer, gardener and diarist
Planetary management
“It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which we
sail through space. If the bread and beef above
decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a
hatch and there is a new supply, of which
before we never dreamed. And very great
command over the services of others comes to
those who as the hatches are opened are
permitted to say, "This is mine!"
Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1879).
The ‘no problem’ school
Managing the planet as a responsibility,
not a right.
Humans have an ethical responsibility to
be caring managers, or stewards of the
Earth and its resources.
Stewardship
…it refers to the essential role individuals and communities
play in the careful management of our common natural
and cultural wealth, both now and for future generations…
Stewardship emphasizes the integration of people and
nature, not the attempted isolation of one from the other.
Brown, J. and Mitchell, B., 2000. The stewardship approach and its relevance for
protected landscapes. In The George Wright Forum (Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 70 -79).
George Wright Society.
Bio-centrism
“If we choose to let conjecture run wild, then animals, our fellow brethren in pain, diseases, death, suffering and famine — our slaves in the most laborious works, our companions in our amusement — they may partake of our origin in one common ancestor — we may be all netted together. “
Darwin's Notebook on Transmutation of Species (1837)
“There is not an animal (that lives) on Earth. Nor a being that flies on its wings, but (forms a part) of a community like you.”
Qur'an 6:38
“You are that which you wish to harm.”
Mahavira, last Jain Tirthankara
“The world grows smaller and smaller, more and more interdependent…today more than ever before life must be characterised by a sense of Universal Responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.”
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama
Eco-centrism in indigenous spirituality
“Humankind has not woven
the web of life. We are but one
thread within it. Whatever we
do to the web, we do to
ourselves. All things are bound
together. All things connect.”
Chief Seattle ( (c. 1786 – 1866), leader of the
Suquamish and Duwamish Native American tribes
Eco-centrism in eastern spirituality
“Humanity follows the Earth,
the Earth follows Heaven,
Heaven follows the Dao, and the
Dao follows what is natural.”
Dao De Jing
By Thomas Berg - Flickr page, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42619971
Eco-centrism in ‘minority’ western traditions
Legend of St. Francis, Sermon to the Birds, upper Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
“Saint Francis invited all of creation – animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honour and praise to the Lord. ”
Pope John Paul II, 1982
“Informal” laws of ecology
1. Everything is connected to everything else
2. Everything must go somewhere
3. Nature knows best
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch
Barry Commoner (1970s): Biologist and environmental activist
“Mercury vapor is carried by the wind, eventually brought to earth in rain or snow. Entering a mountain lake, let us say, the mercury condenses and sinks to the bottom. Here it is acted on by bacteria which convert it to methyl mercury. This is soluble and taken up by fish; since it is not metabolized, the mercury accumulates in the organs and flesh of the fish. The fish is caught and eaten by a man and the mercury becomes deposited in his organs, where it might be harmful. And so on.”
Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (New York: Al fred A. Knopf, 1971), 40.
The person is not above or outside of nature. The person is part of
creation on-going. The person cares for and about nature, shows
reverence towards and respect for nonhuman nature, loves and lives
with nonhuman nature… Deep ecology, unlike reform
environmentalism, is not just a pragmatic, short-term social movement
with a goal like stopping nuclear power or cleaning up the waterways.
Deep ecology first attempts to question and present alternatives to
conventional ways of thinking in the modern West.”
Devall, B., 1980. The deep ecology movement. Nat. Resources J., 20, p.299.
Eco-feminism Environment and women linked by shared history of oppression.
“The immediate cause of present-day woes and future threats is the patriarchal system, founded upon the appropriation of procreation and fertility, the mental and cultural structures of which have persisted across all successive social and economic domains..”
d'Eaubonne, F., 1999. What could an ecofeminist society be?. Ethics and the Environment, 4(2), pp.179-184.
Anthropocentric
▪ Planetary management: resources must be managed to maximise human benefit
▪ No-problem: no strong need for management/regulation as Earth’s resources (and human potential to innovate) are vast.
▪ Stewardship: resources must be managed such that humans benefit without causing excessive damage.
Biocentric ▪ Features in many religions. ▪ Does not consider chemical and geological
elements (the ‘abiotic’) of the environment to be as important as living (biotic) beings or components.
Ecocentric
▪ Features in Eastern spirituality, indigenous beliefs and minority Western spiritual tradition.
▪ Deep ecology: rather than short-term fixes, need to question dominant anthropocentrism that led to environmental problems.
▪ Eco-feminism: identifies patriarchal society as a specific cause.
To recap…
Discuss
What kind of environmental
worldview would you describe
this as? Why?
US Republican politician Rick Santorum
said at a 2012 campaign event: “We
were put on this Earth as creatures of
God to have dominion over the Earth,
to use it wisely and steward it wisely,
but for our benefit not for the Earth’s
benefit.”
▪ View of human nature: people inherently good/evil?
▪ View of ‘the good life’: people inherently responsible/hedonistic?
▪ Equality: all people equal to each other?
▪ Responsibilities to others: people inherently selfish/selfless?
▪ Relationship between individual and the state: individual rights vs state’s rights?
▪ Sources of ethical wisdom: right and wrong can be found in an objective authority/in each individual’s personal beliefs.
Relationship between humans and nature is one component of worldview
2. US National Parks case study
And what a splendid contemplation too, when
one (who has traveled these realms, and can
duly appreciate them) imagines them as they
might in future be seen (by some great
protecting policy of government)preserved
in their pristine beauty and wildness, in a
magnificent park…”
George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians (1841)
“…a magnificent park, where the world
could see for ages to come, the native
Indian in his classic attire, galloping his
wild horse, with sinewy bow, and shield
and lance, amid the fleeting herds of elks
and buffaloes…
George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians (1841)
Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir on Glacier Point
With inexpressible delight you wade out into the grassy sun-lake, feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty. And notwithstanding the scene is so impressively spiritual, and you seem dissolved in it, yet everything about you is beating with warm, terrestrial, human love, delightfully substantial and familiar.
John Muir, The Mountains of California (1894). Scottish-American naturalist, author, founder of the Sierra Club.
Muir's view of native peoples around Yosemite was nothing short of disdainful. In his lengthy essay, The Mountains of California, Muir glowingly describes geology, flora and fauna. Of the sixteen chapters in the essay, none are devoted to the resident American Indians. Several encounters are described, though. In the most telling, Muir, having climbed a pass where "in every direction the landscape stretched sublimely away in fresh wilderness - a manuscript written by the hand of Nature alone," encounters a group of Mono Indians traveling the same trail. He notes both men and women "persistently" begged for whiskey and tobacco and "were mostly ugly, and some of them altogether hideous," having “no right place in the landscape”.
Kantor, I., 2007. Ethnic Cleansing and America's Creation of National Parks. Pub. Land &
Resources L. Rev., 28, p.41.
Yellowstone superintendent Captain Moses … argued that the presence of Indians in Yellowstone not only threatened the wild flora and fauna in the park, but Indians could never become "civilized" so long as they continued to frequent their "former wilderness haunts…
[Yosemite Superintendent] A. E. Wood implied that removal [of the Yosemite Indians] would not be necessary since the Yosemite were a "vanishing" tribe that would soon die out or assimilate into white society.
Spence, M., 1996. Dispossesing the wilderness: Yosemite Indians and the national park
ideal, 1864-1930. Pacific historical review, 65(1), pp.27-59.
Pushed out by policy Trespassing and hunting regulations at Yosemite adversely affected Indians who hunted game or gathered plants.
President Ulysses S. Grant pocket- vetoed a Federal bill to protect bison herds (1874).
General Philip Sheridan even advocated slaughtering the herds, to deprive the Plains Indians of food (1875).
▪ As a result, tribal people who have depended on and managed lands for generations are being displaced.
▪ E.g. Tribes in India’s tiger reserves.
The ‘wilderness’ model of conservation continues to
be perpetuated around the world
By Davidvraju - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52020901
India’s Forest Rights Act recognizes tribal rights to remain on land and use its resources, when it is turned into a conservation zone.
But these ‘Habitat Rights’ must essentially be claimed by the tribespeople themselves under the Act.
By Simon Williams / Ekta Parishad - Ekta Parishad, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11409314
The Baiga tribe Baiga identify as guardians of the forest and soil:
“ ‘You must not tear the breasts of your Mother the Earth with the plough like the Gond and Hindu. You will cut down trees and burn them and sow your seed in the ashes. But you will never become rich, for if you did you would forsake the earth, and then there would be no one to guard it and keep its nails in place.’ Then Bhagavan showed Naga Baiga how to cut bewar and sow seed in the ashes of burnt trees…”
Verrier Elwin, anthropologist, ethnologist and tribal activist, describing Baiga creation myth (1939).
© Survival
The Baiga are a Scheduled Tribe, an official designation for groups of historically disadvantaged indigenous people in India.
Displacement affects social cohesion, livelihoods and wellbeing, impacting resilience and widening inequalities.
‘We were stronger in the forest’
Extent of Great Indian Peninsular Railway network in 1870. The GIPR was one of the largest rail companies at that time.
Historical context
Historical accounts indicate conflict between Baiga and British authorities over resource use (felling trees to build railways and ships).
British outlawed bewar (shifting agriculture) practiced by the Baiga.
British in 1890 recognised seven villages (area known as Baiga Chak) as having limited rights over the forest.
There has been some progress 2016: Habitat Rights for seven predominantly Baiga villages .
Granted an area of ~23,000 acres from which the Baigas will not be evicted for any purpose.
Modern activists essentially using the much earlier British ruling as a precedent.
But there are still ~50 villages that need to get Habitat Rights.
Discussion questions
What similarities can be drawn from the experiences of Plains
Indians during the formation of US National Parks and Baiga
tribespeople today?
How did wider economic, social and political factors contribute
to the environmental inequalities experienced in each case?
Coffee Break 15 mins
3. Environmental risk
People tend to perceive danger and respond to risk in different ways, encouraging the development of different social structures.
This extends to perception of nature and natural/environmental hazards and problems.
Douglas, M., 2007. A history of grid and group cultural theory. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto. http://projects. chass. utoronto. ca/semiotics/cyber/douglas1. pdf.
The cultural theory of risk
‘Group’: how strongly people are bonded together.
▪ When people group together, laws are more easily defined and policed.
‘Grid’: how different people are in the group.
▪ When people can easily interchange roles, they are less dependent on one another.
▪ When they possess distinct roles, it may be more advantageous to work together.
▪ But, this may also create different degrees of entitlement.
Grid-group
Where does nature fit in?
Nature is capricious
Nature is tolerant
Nature is benign
Nature is fragile
Flooding will
happen no matter what
you do.
Don’t tell me
where I can build my house!
If the river
were managed properly…
Everything was
fine until…
The American first lady's remark on viewing the devastation after
the 1970 Peruvian earthquake that the United States was going to
help the victims until everything was "just rosy again" exemplifies
the belief that the disaster was an "extreme event" and returning
to normalcy would solve all the problems. There was little
recognition that the destruction and misery in Peru in 1970 and
after were as much a product of that nation's historic
underdevelopment as they were of the earthquake.
Oliver-Smith, A., 1999. Peru’s five hundred-year earthquake: vulnerability in historical context. The Angry Earth,
pp.74-88.
▪ Limited access to healthcare
▪ Political instability
▪ Cash crops
▪ Fragile infrastructure
▪ Changing building materials & settlement patterns
CC BY-SA 2.5 es, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=773738
How was Peru’s vulnerability in 1970 linked to political economy?
Social amplification of risk denotes the phenomenon by which
information processes, institutional structures, social-group
behavior, and individual responses shape the social experience of
risk, thereby contributing to risk consequences.
Kasperson, R.E., Renn, O., Slovic, P., Brown, H.S., Emel, J., Goble, R., Kasperson, J.X. and Ratick, S., 1988. The
social amplification of risk: A conceptual framework. Risk analysis, 8(2), pp.177-187.
Mase, A.S., Cho, H. and Prokopy, L.S., 2015. Enhancing the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) by exploring trust, the availability
heuristic, and agricultural advisors' belief in climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 41, pp.166-176.
▪ The relationship between people and nature is a common component in one’s worldview.
▪ Environmental worldviews are frequently categorised as anthropocentric, biocentric or ecocentric.
▪ Environmental risk can be framed within the concept of cultural theory, but can also be framed within the context of political economy.
▪ It may be necessary for decision-makers to look beyond the natural environment to find ways to mitigate environmental risk.
Summary
Discussion questions
Then-Mayor Micheal Bloomberg said the following in response
to Hurricane Sandy:
'Any loss of life is tragic; sadly, nature is dangerous, and these
things occur. The best thing we can do for those who did die is
make sure this city recovers for those who come out of this and
build a better life for those left behind'" http://www.nyti mes .com/2012/11/01/us/after-storms-destruction-halting-return-in-northeast.html ?_r=1&pagewanted=all&
What would Oliver-Smith say to this? Use a quote from the
reading to support your claim.
