Social Discourse and Environmental Policy

Social Discourse and Environmental Policy
Author: Helen Addams
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2000-11-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781781956571

As governments and the wider public become increasingly concerned about environmental problems, the necessity for competent environmental policies is growing. The contributors to this highly original book attempt to demonstrate how the use of Q methodology can result in the development of more effective, socially sensitive, environmental policy options. The book highlights the history of Q methodology, a technique for systematically studying the subjectivity of individuals, and provides a brief yet comprehensive account of its theory and a detailed guide to the various stages of a Q study. The methodology is then applied, to explore the discourses concerning the relationship between society and a diverse range of environmental issues including, environmental protest, civil aviation policy, forest policy and land use options.

Environmental Policy is Social Policy – Social Policy is Environmental Policy

Environmental Policy is Social Policy – Social Policy is Environmental Policy
Author: Isidor Wallimann
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2014-07-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1461467233

​ ​This book argues that social and environmental policy should be synthetically treated as one and the same field, that both are but two aspects of the same coin – if sustainability is the goal. Such a paradigm shift is indicated, important, and timely to effectively move towards sustainability. This book is the first to take this approach and to give examples for it. Not to synthetically merge the two fields has been and will continue to be highly insufficient, inefficient and contradictory for policy and public administration aiming for a transformation towards a sustainable world. In general, social problems are dealt with in one “policy corner” and environmental problems in another. Rarely is social policy (at large) concerned with its impact on the environment or its connection with and relevance to environmental policy. Equally, environmental problems are generally not seen in conjunction with social policy, even though much environmental policy directly relates to health, nutrition, migration and other issues addressed by social policy. This book intends to correct the pattern to separate these very significant and large policy fields. Using examples from diverse academic and applied fields, it is shown how environmental policy can (and should) be thought of as social policy – and how social policy can (and should) simultaneously be seen as environmental policy. Tremendous benefits are to be expected.

The Politics of Environmental Discourse

The Politics of Environmental Discourse
Author: Maarten A. Hajer
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 1995-12-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019152106X

Dr Hajer's path-breaking study opens the way for a better understanding of the environmental conflict, showing how language can be seen to shape our view of what environmental politics is really about and how those perceptions can differ between countries. The author identifies the emergence and increasing political importance of 'ecological modernization' as a new concept in the language of environmental politics. This concept, which has come to replace the antagonistic debates of the 1970s, stresses the opportunities of environmental policy for modernizing the economy and stimulating the technological innovation. Combining abstract social theory with detailed empirical analysis, Martin Hajer illustrates the social and political dynamics of ecological modernization in a detailed analysis of the acid rain controversies in Great Britain and the Netherlands. He concludes by reflecting on the institutional challenge of the environmental politics in the years to come.

Business, Organized Labour and Climate Policy

Business, Organized Labour and Climate Policy
Author: Peter Glynn
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2017-04-28
Genre: Climatic changes
ISBN: 1786430126

This impartial study analyses the role of employer’s organisations and trade unions in climate change policy and its impacts on the labour market. The policies of government to manage greenhouse gas emissions will require business to change its product and service delivery arrangements, which in turn means labour requirements will also change. The book also considers whether labour market issues should be explicit in the theoretical framework of ecological modernisation as it guides the policy development process.

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy
Author: Sheldon Kamieniecki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 783
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019974467X

Prior to the Nixon administration, environmental policy in the United States was rudimentary at best. Since then, it has evolved into one of the primary concerns of governmental policy from the federal to the local level. As scientific expertise on the environment rapidly developed, Americans became more aware of the growing environmental crisis that surrounded them. Practical solutions for mitigating various aspects of the crisis - air pollution, water pollution, chemical waste dumping, strip mining, and later global warming - became politically popular, and the government responded by gradually erecting a vast regulatory apparatus to address the issue. Today, politicians regard environmental policy as one of the most pressing issues they face. The Obama administration has identified the renewable energy sector as a key driver of economic growth, and Congress is in the process of passing a bill to reduce global warming that will be one of the most important environmental policy acts in decades. The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Environmental Policy will be a state-of-the-art work on all aspects of environmental policy in America. Over the past half century, America has been the world's leading emitter of global warming gases. However, environmental policy is not simply a national issue. It is a global issue, and the explosive growth of Asian countries like China and India mean that policy will have to be coordinated at the international level. The book will therefore focus not only on the U.S., but on the increasing importance of global policies and issues on American regulatory efforts. This is a topic that will only grow in importance in the coming years, and this will serve as an authoritative guide to any scholar interested in the issue.

Just Sustainabilities

Just Sustainabilities
Author: Robert Doyle Bullard
Publisher: Earthscan
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849771774

Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. This book argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice.

Living with Nature

Living with Nature
Author: Frank Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 1999
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019829509X

This text aims to place the question of the dynamics of environmental crisis in a socio-cultural dimension of the existing economic and political institutions. It argues for a need to find a balance between theoretical analysis of the debate and an appreciation of local circumstances and knowledge.

Ozone Discourses

Ozone Discourses
Author: Karen Litfin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1994
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780231081375

How can scientific knowledge be translated into political change? Ozone Discourse examines the first global environment treaty, the Montreal Protocol and its subsequent revisions, which was a highly effective collaboration among scientists, policymakers and activists. The treaties were the work of a small group of experts who, without conventional political or economic resources, were able to persuade most of the world's nations to agree to reduce and then eliminate chlorofluorocarbons. These experts used their understanding of atmospheric science to supplement the policymakers' short-term perspective with a wider, intergenerational timeframe characteristic of global environmental problems. Litfin argues that the discipline of international relations requires a broader conception of power in order to accomodate the knowledge-based problems such as environmental degradation.

The Far Right and the Environment

The Far Right and the Environment
Author: Bernhard Forchtner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2019-09-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351104020

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, both the crisis of liberal democracy, as visible in, for example, the rise of far-right actors in Europe and the United States, and environmental crises, from declining biodiversity to climate change, are increasingly in the public spotlight. Whilst both areas have been analysed extensively on their own, The Far Right and the Environment: Politics, Discourse and Communication provides much needed insights into their intersection by illuminating the environmental communication of far-right party and non-party actors in Europe and the United States. Although commonly perceived as a ‘left-wing’ issue today, concerns over the natural environment by the far right have a long, ideology-driven history. Thus, it is not surprising that some members of the far right offer distinctive ecological visions of communal life, though, for example, climate-change scepticism is voiced too. Investigating this range of stances within their discourse about the natural environment provides a window into the wider politics of the far right and points to a close connection between the politics of identity and the imagination of nature. Connecting the fields of environmental communication and study of the far right, contributions to this edited volume therefore offer timely assessments of this often-overlooked dimension of far-right politics.

Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse

Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse
Author: Richard M. Robinson
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2021-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030756068

This book explores the meaning and role of “fair and reasoned discourse” in the context of our institutions for environmental decision processes. The book reviews the roles of our “environmental advocacy organizations”—such as The Sierra Club, The Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund—in providing and ensuring that our discourse and decisions are fair and reasoned according to the criteria of being (i) inclusive of input from all affected, (ii) informed of relevant scientific and socio-economic information, (iii) uncorrupted by direct conflicts of interest, and (iv) logical according robust review by uncorrupted judges. These organizations are described and examined as expressions of “collective imperfect duty,” i.e. the coordinated duties with environmental direction. The current state of our discourse is examined in light of this fairness criteria, particularly in consideration of the cross-border problems that threaten tragedies of the global commons.