Saturday, March 20, 2010

Part III of assignment #5 (Final Paper Topic)

Final research project:
A congressional effort for controlling manipulation of scientific results on environmental policy: Focused on the Restore Scientific Integrity to Federal Research and Policymaking Act in 2005.

I’ve selected the bill HR 839 IH (“Restore Scientific Integrity to Federal Research and Policymaking Act”: Introduced in House) as the research topic for my final project. Through the class reading materials, especially several chapters from Vig and Kraft’s book, I found that political parties, the White House, and public agencies have made considerable attempts to manipulate scientific results. The serious problem is that we don’t know exactly how many there have really been regarding these scientific manipulations: Some argue for institutional actions for preventing scientific manipulations while others pay attention to the limitations of the institutional approach. Critics frequently point out that building cultural change toward sound science may be the first thing that must be done to overcome the current unsound science problems.

This bill is a by-product reflecting a series of critiques and problems suggested by people. On February 16, 2005, under the 109th Congress, this bill was introduced to two House committees (the Committee on Government Reform and the Committee on Science), by Rep. Henry A. Waxman. According to the CRS (Congressional Research Service) summary, this bill, called the Restore Scientific Integrity to Federal Research and Policymaking Act, prohibits a federal employee from: (1) tampering with the conduct of federally funded scientific research or analysis; (2) censorship of findings of such research or analysis; or (3) directing the dissemination of scientific information known by the directing employee to be false or misleading. If a federal employee breaks these rules, a penalty for violations of such prohibition is set forth. The bill consists of eight sub-sections (“short title,” “findings and purpose,” “prohibition of political interference with science,” “whistleblower extension for discourses relating to interference with science,” “requirements relating to federal scientific advisory committees,” “peer review,” “state of scientific integrity report,” and “definitions”) and especially emphasizes two things: (1) the roles of the federal government and scientific advisory committees for preventing political interference with science and (2) strengthening protection of whistleblowers regarding disclosures of political interference with science. After this bill was introduced, 80 House members (all Republicans) co-sponsored it. A Senate bill (“S. 1358”) was introduced to follow-up the House bill on June 30, 2005.

With this background information on realizing “sound science,” my final paper deals with a congressional effort for controlling manipulation of scientific results on environmental policy in terms of its social, economic, scientific, political and legal issues, values, and contexts. To do so, my paper will discuss (1) history and background of this bill (why and how this bill was made), (2) politics and socio-economic values, (3) legal issues, and (4) scientific uncertainty. Based on these analyses, I will give (5) policy alternatives and recommendations on sound science, and finally (6) make a conclusion and find desirable future directions for scientific integrity and sound science. Comprehensive literature reviews will be conducted to analyze the socio-economic, political, and legal contexts surrounding this bill. Some articles and books, especially Vaughn and Villabos’s article (2009) in the Review of Policy Research and Chris Moony’s two books The Republican War on Science (2006) and Storm World: Hurricane, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming (2008), will be critically and analytically reviewed for my research. I haven’t yet decided what type of research method(s) will be used for my research, but maybe it will be based on content analysis or discourse analysis through literature, documents, and interview data.


Reference

Vaughn, J. S., & Villalobos, J. D. (2009). The Obama administration’s challenges after the “War on Science”: Reforming staffing practices and protecting scientific integrity in the executive branch, Review of Policy Research, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp. 803-819.
Mooney, C. (2006). The Republican war on science, New York: Basic Books.
Mooney, C. (2008). Storm world: Hurricane, politics, and the battle over global warming, Orlando, FL: Mariner Books.

Part II of assignment #5

1. Sustainable development, which focuses on going hand in hand between environmental protection and economic development, is one of the key international policy agendas for many countries. In spite of multiple meanings of this symbolic agenda, several scholars mention that development, in the context of sustainable development, means that the “Third World’s economies will become equal to the developed world’s economies.” This, in turn, will alleviate poverty and suffering in poor countries and make the world more equitable for all human beings (according to T. Davis in What is Sustainable Development?). With this in mind, I think currently developing countries have the right to exploit forests and other natural resources for economic growth, but there are several limitations for doing this. Tobin’s chapter 13 and Economy’s chapter 14 of Vig and Kraft’s book show well why developing countries cannot create economic development or exploit forests or natural resources efficiently and effectively. Common reasons regarding the inability of developing countries concerning exploiting natural resources are that they are “unwilling to pay the political and economic price to make thriving economies with manageable environmental problems” (Economy, p. 321). As Tobin mentions, there are some factors influencing how events in rich and poor countries influence the quest for sustainable development with rather different routes: a country’s population, a country’s capacity to support its population (p. 288), and different patterns of consumption and inequalities in consumption among rich and poor countries (pp. 295-300). Therefore, the developing or poor countries, having little political and economic capital compared with the developed countries, show rather different development strategies in terms of sustainable development. Economy’s chapter dealing with the case of China’s national strategy for creating cooperation and reconciliation between environmental protection and economic development (focusing on “grand-scale urbanization plans” since the 2000s) show us that several problems arise in the process of implementing such a strategy: serious air pollution (acid rain and yellow dust), water hazard, spoiling the party (flourishing corruption and illegal connections among local businesses and government officials), and the like. The case of China tells us that sustainable development is hard with the current political and economic infrastructure and capitals and the logic of economic growth like urbanization or modernization movement might bring about serious environmental degradation and deconstruction, unlike the developed countries. Theoretically, the environmental Kuznets curve, before becoming flatter, shows the situation of developing countries having low income and environmental degradation gets higher in this situation.

2. Climate change debate has long been made with several issues in terms of socio-economic and environmental impacts, causes, equity among industrialized and developing countries, and intergovernmental and international efforts for minimizing these negative impacts. Of them, the equity issue is one of the sensitive issues which are hard to make a consensus on. Through the Kyoto-Protocol, international societies attempt to address and solve global warming and many have asked whether developed nations - which led the industrial revolution and are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere - should bear a greater responsibility for combating climate change. According to the United Nations Foundation (http://www.unfoundation.org/), the principle underlying Kyoto is known as "common but differentiated responsibilities," which continues as a centerpiece principle for those calling on developed countries to assume a greater responsibility. China, India, and other developing countries call for recognition of this principle, while many developed countries argue that conditions have changed as developing countries have begun to industrialize and pollute more rapidly in recent years.

Selin and VanDever’s chapter 12 (“Global Climate Change”) discusses the global climate change issue under international and multilateral perspectives. Through several international efforts for reducing global climate change risks, like the UNFCCC or Kyoto Protocol, several countries conduct GHG reduction but procedural and distributional justice issues can be mentioned among countries. As the author mentioned, the adoption of means to address ongoing and accelerating climate change requires the investment of additional resources, and helping particularly vulnerable countries and local communities that face significant challenges as a result of climate change should be a priority for the international community, but the funding needs and requests have greatly outnumbered the amount of financial resources made available by UNFCCC Annex II countries and international organizations (p. 281). Therefore, many developed countries argue that the climate change issue is a collective, global problem that can only be successfully combated if every country puts its wits and resources fully behind resolving the crisis. Developed and developing countries are equally responsible for resolving the crisis. If developed nations were forced to cut emissions and developing nations allowed to increase per capita emissions, overall emissions would be kept constant and not reduced.

On the other hand, developing countries focus on different socio-economic and environmental situations. Under the current lack of political and social capital for dealing with the climate change issue, they argue that the equity issue should be preferentially considered compared with other reference points. Emissions per capita are much higher in developed countries compared to developing ones. This means that individuals in developed nations are more responsible for causing global warming, more responsible for continuing global warming, and so more obligated to cut emissions and solve the problem. Regarding strategies of developing countries to climate change mitigation, Mohan Munasighe suggests the DES (Development, Equity and Sustainability) approach based on the UNFCCC principle. Especially, regarding equity, two principles should be considered: (1) specific needs and special circumstances of developing countries (like fair burden sharing in mitigation as “common but differentiated responsibilities”) and (2) developed nations to take the lead of global climate change policy based on the fact that socioeconomic and development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing countries.

China’s case in Economy’s chapter 14 shows the possibility of serious environmental destruction and degradation when a developing country focuses on economic growth under the name of grand-scale modernization or urbanization. As I mentioned in question 1 of part II, the developing countries’ inability to pay the political and economic price to create thriving economies with manageable environmental problems has different results of sustainable development among industrialized and developing countries. That is, the developing countries’ lack of political and economic capacity (or capital) toward sustainable development and lack of balance between economic development and environmental protection give rise to serious environmental problems. Without any mechanisms or strategies for increasing government accountability, greater transparency of the process of implementation of global environmental policy, and greater independence in the legal system (Economy, p. 324), developing countries’ preoccupation with economic growth might bring about undesirable environmental results.

The equity issue is a very important and sensitive topic regarding climate change policy in terms of the international perspective. Several existing studies dealing with climate change mitigation strategies consider equity as one of the key points. However, I am not sure whether or not it is most important and only a policy goal regarding the climate change debate. We should consider several points concomitantly: economic and political situation, sustainable development, technological development, and global cooperation. First and foremost, the enduring trust and cooperation of most countries should be based on the implementation of global climate change policy. With a scientifically rigorous, economically achievable plan, developing countries try to make economic development along a sustainable low-GHG path while industrialized countries drastically attempt to reduce their own emissions and not create mechanisms that can be used opportunistically to shift the primary burden to the developing countries. Developed and developing countries alike mobilize several trillion dollars to accomplish the technical and infrastructure transformation, but those high-GHG-emission countries pay more than others.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Assignment #4: Part I (Environmental Justice)

Web link to the newspaper article dealing with environmental justice:
Climate change: A civil rights issue for blacks
http://www.usatoday.com/NEWS/usaedition/2010-01-08-column08_ST2_U.htm

I selected a USA Today article published in January 2010 and written by Julianne Malveaux. This newspaper article basically deals with a climate change issue discussed in the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen in January 2010, which focuses on conflicts between the rich (the United States and European countries) and the poor countries regarding environmental issues and how they deal with creating better global environmental performance. In this article, the author consistently argues that “climate change is more than an environmental issue” and “it is a human rights and economic justice issue” because climate change influences different countries, different communities, and people of different colors in various ways. Focusing on the different impact of climate change issues on black people, the author argues that environmental issues should be considered with various racial or gender perspectives.

The author’s viewpoint on different impacts of environmental issues like climate change is consistent with that of many environmental justice-related policy actors. For example, Mirey Navarro’s article in the New York Times in March 2009 (“In Environmental Push, Looking to Add Diversity”) shows that national environmental organizations in the United States have traditionally drawn their membership from among the white and affluent, and have faced criticism for focusing more on protecting resources than protecting people. The need for racial diversity has been a persistent issue in the environmental movement in the 1990s, according to Navarro, and under-representation of minorities in American environmental policy-making brings about some bias in the view of environmental problems such as urban sprawl or working smart programs, as Rast (2006) and Paehlke (2010) mentioned.

Several existing data show the possibility of biased environmental perspectives among policy actors. According to a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation study, referred to in Navarro’s article, African-Americans produce less greenhouse gas (about 20%) than other Americans, but they bear a greater burden in terms of pollution and climate change. National polls also show high environmental concern among minorities. A post-election poll for the National Wildlife Federation in November, for example, found increasing support among blacks and Latinos for candidates keen on addressing global warming. And surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California have found that minorities are sometimes even more concerned than white respondents about environmental issues like air pollution. In spite of this circumstance, under-representation of minorities in environmental governance gives rise to environmental racism and undesirable environmental performance for all. It is a basic logic that Navarro consistently argues in the article. Under the current environmental injustice racism trend, minorities, especially African-Americans, have been seriously excluded, although the Obama administration has taken more action orienting toward racial diversity on environmental governance.

As Rast mentioned, there are several efforts to realize environmental justice in the United States. Under “new regionalism,” representing developing voluntary forms of cooperation, coalition-building efforts, economic competitiveness, quality of life, and new urbanism (p. 251), current growth patterns bring about several malfunctions in urban and community development: the absence of people of color from smart growth coalition (p. 250), urban sprawl, traffic congestion, pollution, or loss of green space (p. 251). To overcome these problems, there are several community groups for environmental justice and they try to form coalitions for environmental justice and health, conduct research for doing so, and develop models for relevant and desirable environmental-movement building. The movement for environmental justice is still under construction. Racial or gender diversity, building models for desirable environmental health and sustainable development, and voluntary or participatory community-based urban planning and development, like smart growth that Paehlke mentioned, will be needed for developing better environmental discourse among policy actors in the future.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Should several policy problems be related to the “population crisis” that Hardin mentioned?

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We read Hardin’s two articles on the tragedy of the commons, and he consistently argues that economic crisis should be considered in terms of population crisis – different reproduction rates between poor and rich countries. So the world politico-economic system should try to maintain a balance for minimizing the impact of population crisis and Hardin takes a closed (or restricted)-door immigration policy stance. Regarding some counter-arguments on his stances on global commons, which focus on the importance of technological development, Hardin also takes a defense that every technological solution requires considerable costs. It is a very interesting thought regarding world order, power relationships between countries, and ways for economic stability and development for poor countries.

What do you think about Hardin’s argument on domestic and global commons? Is it legitimate in today’s economic crisis and some actions of countries for dealing with these problems? Especially, is Hardin’s logic that population crisis plays a key role in deciding economic de-stability true? Here is a short video clip including an interview of Hardin regarding immigration policy. I hope it is helpful for you in increasing your understanding of world commons. Enjoy it.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Measuring environmental sustainability with quantitative indicators: The Enviromental Performance Measurement Project

Robert C. Paehlke’s chapter dealing with sustainable development in terms of urban contexts shows cases of American cities’ efforts for improving environmental sustainability through several institutional approaches. One impressive concept is how cities’ environmental sustainability is measured with quantitative indicators. I found an interesting site on measuring environmental sustainability from the “Environmental Performance Measurement Project” (http://www.yale.edu/esi/). This project was released in the Davos forum, Switzerland, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Friday, January 28, 2005. This Web site includes concrete research methodology, countries used, variables and indicators for measuring environmental sustainability, and results, so if you are interested in measuring environmental sustainability with quantitative research methods, this project and related data can be very helpful in understanding it. You can also find raw data for environmental sustainability in terms of international comparative studies.