Henrik
At 09:37 PM 4/3/2006, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Beth,
I would second Stacy's very good suggestions.
Transparency and accountability will continue to develop as important themes for research and activism. Developing analyses of how these can restrain environmental degradation would be very helpful. Also, how developing information tools and institutional mechanisms (e.g., certification, regulation, improved feedback loops between consumers and producers) can contribute. This theme is probably the most central, since it will underlie every topic that you could think of, and cross every scale.
The hidden costs of technology, transportation, and production are going to grow in significance. Electronic wastes are one example of overlooked technology impacts, but there are many others. Long-distance transportation is a curiously ignored phenomenon, yet shipping foods, goods, and people worldwide pollutes, contributes to climate change, and reinforces fossil fuels. But how can these hidden costs be mapped? And what about the movement of diseases like bird flu? I would say that these all are facets of globalization that could be studied together.
Environmental health is another crucial area. Having worked in California, I have joined the Collaborative on Health and Environment and have become aware of a very wide range of human and ecological health trends that may have environmental causes contributing. (Their website will give you many ideas for what to think about and where to look.) I would say that we are posed on a frontier right now as the politics of chemicals and nanotechnology change with new science and the body burden idea. Yet there are few policies or institutional ideas for addressing such issues.
Consumption will be even more critical as China, India and other industrializing countries expand, and industrial countries don't deal with their resource use. We need to go beyond technical analyses and link consumption with industrial transformation. Industrial transformation and how this can occur is still quite open. In California, for example, "green chemistry" is starting to emerge as an area of policy-making for industry to adopt safer, more sustainable chemicals. Linking science and politics for change is a very promising area for scholarship. In addition, the "peak oil" issue and biomass energy sources has started to crop up on my radar screen lately.
I also support biodiversity and climate change as ongoing important areas of work. We are still very far from achieving policies and institutions that work, so perhaps fresh angles can be found in these areas.
I think Raul Pacheco asked a similar question on GEP-ed late last year, so the thread for that may be of interest as well.
Cheers,
Alastair
Quoting "VanDeveer, Stacy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
Beth,
I agree with much of what has been said. In the medium term, I think the nexus of public sector transparency/corruption and environmental degradation and management (and hence corporate governance) will continue to be a growing area of activism and scholarship.
On a different note, I would add some very open empirical questions for various strands of environmental research. The open questions revolve around a similar thematic question: Are there environmental explanations (or environment induced drivers) for several observed (or hypothesized?) changes in human health. For example, are there environmental factors in increasing human infertility? Autism? Auto-immune diseases/conditions? Etc.
--sv
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Wil Burns
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 7:33 PM
To: 'Radoslav Dimitrov'; 'Beth DeSombre'
Cc: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu
Subject: RE: Emerging environmental issues?
Hey Beth (and I hope your new campus-wide initiative will provide us all
with ample funds to work on these things),
I have one micro and one more macro suggestion:
1. Nanotechnology: in my mind this could be GMOs on steroids as an
environmental threat; in many ways, I see the same kind of responses
nationally and internationally:
a. A feckless operationalization of the precautionary principle;
b. Inadequate assessments of potential impacts in the face of huge
prospective profits and the dazzling packaging to date of its applications;
c. Very little public engagement, and most of that extremely ill-informed;
2. Macro issue: developing indicators to assess the ecologically
effectiveness of treaty regimes and to facilitate the development of
benchmarks. In the wildlife arena, where I work the most, regimes e.g. CMS
and CBD are just beginning to grapple with this critical issue.
I also agree with Radoslav that "treaty congestion," or whatever metaphor
one prefers, has become a very hot topic, again evinced by substantial
amounts of time being devoted at the meetings of the parties in regimes such
as Rotterdam, CBD, CMS, Barcelona Convention. wil
Wil Burns
Associate Professor
International Environmental Policy Program
Monterey Institute of International Studies
460 Pierce Street
Monterey, CA. 93940-2659 USA
831.647.7104 (Phone)
831.647.4199 (Fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.miis.edu/gsips-progs-maiep.html
_____________________________________
In the end we will conserve only what we love;
we will love only what we understand; and
we will understand only what we are taught.
Baba Dioum
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Radoslav
Dimitrov
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2006 3:10 PM
To: Beth DeSombre
Cc: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu
Subject: Re: Emerging environmental issues?
One recurrent theme at various intergovernmental meetings is
Coordination. With a plethora of multilateral agreements, many of
which are interrelated, there is frequent talk about coordinating
their implementation. "Synergies" is a keyword in global policy
discourse and an item on the formal agendas of many meetings.
Similarly, the overpopulation with IGOs of overlapping mandates and
jurisdiction, there are constant discussions at various fora about
coordinating IGO activities. Various examples can be offered, from
workshops on synergies among the Rio Conventions, to setting up a
Collaborative Partnership on Forests (among 7 or so IGOs), to
persistent proposals to create a grandiose environmental
organization. (I mean ideas that circulate among governments, apart
from the academic proposals of Esty, Biermann and others. There are
have been high level meetings on this topic, involving ministers).
So, there is a coordination or "Governing governance" theme that can
be treated as an emerging issue in global environmental politics.
Hope this helps, Beth.
Rado
Radoslav S. Dimitrov, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Western Ontario
Social Science Centre
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5C2
Tel. +1(519) 661-2111 ext. 85023
Fax +1(519) 661-3904
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 3-Apr-06, at 5:53 PM, Beth DeSombre wrote:
For a committee I'm on (proposing directions for a university
environmental institute) I've been charged with determining what
people in
my research community see as emerging environmental issues. These
can be
based on topic/issue area (e.g. nanotechnology, nitrogen pollution),
approach (e.g. market mechanisms for environmental regulation, private
regulatory processes), or even thinking about other ways we might
usefully
consider environmental issues (e.g. consumption, sufficiency).
So, if you're willing to weigh in, where do you see our field going
in the
not-too-distant future? What are the things we as scholars should be
gearing up to try to consider?
Incidentally, this shouldn't be limited to an international focus
-- all
scales, from very local, through national and international, are
relevant.
Thanks in advance to those willing to conceptualize and speculate.
Beth
Elizabeth R. DeSombre
Wellesley College
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
