Call for Papers ? Cosmopolitanism and Climate Change

[pharris]

[Apologies if you have seen this already.]

Dear Colleagues,

I am organizing a panel on cosmopolitan ethics and climate change for 
the September 2009 ECPR General Conference in Potsdam, Germany. I am 
writing with the hope that you will propose a paper for the panel.


For information on the conference, please visit this website: 
http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp


The panel, "Improving the Climate Regime: Cosmopolitan Solutions," has 
been accepted by the conference organizers. Here's a description of the 
panel's theme:


The latest science of climate change shows that massive cuts in 
greenhouse gas emissions will be needed by mid-century to avert 
extreme, possibly catastrophic, harm to Earth?s climate system. Yet, 
despite ongoing and sometimes intense diplomatic efforts over two 
decades, governments of the world have been unable to agree to anything 
near the kind of regulation of pollution that would be required to 
achieve these cuts. This failure can be attributed to the nature of the 
climate change regime, which is premised on negotiations among states 
seeking to protect or promote their relatively narrow national 
interests. An alternative (or at least a supplement) to this interstate 
approach can be found in cosmopolitan conceptions of world affairs. 
Cosmopolitanism offers politically viable alternatives to the status 
quo regime that are just, practical and efficacious. This panel aims to 
highlight these alternatives, focusing especially on how cosmopolitan 
ideas might be moved from the realm of philosophy to the practical 
politics and policies of climate change.


My aim in proposing this panel is to bring together people who believe 
that cosmopolitan philosophy and ethics can offer practical and 
workable alternatives to the prevailing state-centric climate change 
regime. I hope that we can gather a collection of papers, and have a 
lively discussion, on how cosmopolitanism can inform the climate change 
regime generally and policies and behaviors in particular. Put another 
way, the objective is not to develop cosmopolitan philosophy related to 
climate change as much as it is to enhance policies and practices 
through (practical) cosmopolitan ethics.


We can have up to seven papers in the panel comprising up to five 
presenters and two additional 'tabled' papers (the tabled papers can be 
discussed during the panel but the authors would not actually do a 
presentation; I'm assuming this limitation is simply to avoid having 
too many speakers using the allotted time, which seems a reasonable 
requirement). If we are fortunate enough to have seven quality papers, 
it is my hope that we can collect them together in a book manuscript 
for submission to a university press and/or as a special issue of a 
scholarly journal. With this in mind, I hope the papers can be 
well-developed, in the range of 9,000-12,000 words (and possibly a bit 
longer if authors feel the need).


Please do consider proposing a paper for the panel. For guidelines on 
how to submit a paper proposal, please go to this website: 
http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/howtosubmit.asp


The SECTION is "Green Politics" (no. 13). The PANEL is "Improving the 
Climate Regime: Cosmopolitan Solutions" (no. 210).


More information for paper givers can be found here: 
http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/files/paper_proposals_guidelines_and_deadlines.pdf


Please note that the DEADLINE for paper proposals is 1 February 2009 
(but I hope you will consider submitting a proposal much sooner).


If you have any questions, or indeed any thoughts on the panel, please 
do get in touch with me.


Many thanks for considering this request.

Best wishes,

Paul

P.S. Please feel free to share this call for papers with anyone you 
think might be interested in seeing it.

--
P.G. Harris
Director, Environmental Studies Programme
Director, Centre for Asian Pacific Studies
Professor, Department of Political Science
Lingnan University
Tuen Mun, HONG KONG
TEL: +852 2616-7199
FAX: +852 2616-5602
http://www.ln.edu.hk/polsci/staff-harris.php




Lingnan University - The Liberal Arts University in Hong Kong

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technological optimism (or is it?)

[Susanne Moser]

Dear colleagues -

For scholarly and practical reasons I am interested in a particular 
facet of the American mind and I am wondering if you can point me to 
some insightful, thoughtful literature on this matter:


I get to be on a lot of panels with other scientists doing outreach to a 
variety of publics on climate change, the most recent one yesterday to 
representatives of the entertainment industry (writers, directors, 
producers etc.) in Hollywood. (The audience may be an item of 
conversation for another time... certainly interesting). What I am 
concerned with here is the particular bias of the messengers that seems 
to hook nicely into a particular kind of wishful thinking present in the 
audience: and that is the almost universal and uncritical optimism that 
technology alone will save us.


I say this with some trepidation as many of you may share that same 
belief (or hope anyway) that technological improvements and innovation 
will pull this fossil cart out of the hot climate ditch. And I hasten to 
add that I am not an anti-technologist, but rather believe that 
technology will play an important role in many aspects of how we will 
lower our greenhouse gas emissions. My challenge with the technological 
optimism is that it seems to come almost invariably with a denial of the 
need for concurrent social change (from individual behavioral changes to 
deeper social norm and value changes regarding the number of children 
and gadgets we seem to desire). Among many who believe in the technology 
will save us-credo it also seems to come with a dismissal of the 
unintended consequences as warranting careful consideration (oh of 
course... but that's the price we have to pay, we will just have to 
manage those consequences). The worst of that sort of optimism I notice 
around the Green Revolution (as a model for what we need in agriculture) 
and around geosequestration (having given up on markets and policies, 
proponents view technologies like space mirrors as inevitable).


We could go off an any one of these tangents. What interests me most 
though is where this American techno-optimism (and concurrent denial of 
the need to look at personal choices) comes from. In my work in Europe 
and Australia, I find - by contrast - quite a readiness to consider 
behavior, consumerism, value changes as viable targets to address. Not 
that Europe or Australia aren't interested in technological innovation; 
I simply find there a greater (civic?) willingness to look at one's own 
behavior, and to be more skeptical of what technology can do for us.


Do any of you know of literature that discusses (explains, critiques, 
denies, examines) this phenomenon? Maybe it's just my serendipitous 
experience, but I doubt it. So, if you can point me in the right 
direction, or tell me of smart listserves where I can inquire, I'd much 
appreciate your help. If you just want to reply to me, I am happy to 
collect the replies but maybe this will spawn some interesting 
discussion for all.


Many thanks,

Susi

--
~~
Susanne C. Moser, Ph.D.
Director, Principal Scientist   
Research Associate
Susanne Moser Research & Consulting   Institute of 
Marine Sciences
134 Shelter Lagoon Dr.  
University of California-Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
   Santa Cruz, CA 95064
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

on meeting Protocol targets

[Ronald Mitchell]

All,

On Tuesday, I forwarded an article on meeting Protocol targets. 

Unfortunately, after sending it, I realized that it contained personal
comments from others at the end of the message that I shouldn't have
forwarded.  
To avoid compounding my error, could you please NOT forward that email.
Thanks.

If you need them, the article and URL are at:

> Europe, Japan Face $46 Billion Global-Warming Penalty (Update1)
> By Alex Morales and Jeremy van Loon
>
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aTYTqcXZf7fE&refer=japan

Thanks,
Ron