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Who has been at the political forefront of clean air policy development in the United States? In The Politics of Air Pollution, George A. Gonzalez argues that the answer is neither the federal government, nor environmental groups, but rather locally oriented economic elites in conjunction with state and local governments. These local growth coalitions, composed of mostly large landholders, land developers, and the owners of regional media and utility firms, support clean air policies insofar as they contribute to the creation of a positive investment climate and, in turn, bring about greater profits through increased land values and an expanded local consumer base.
Underlying current controversies about environmental regulation are shared concerns, divided interests and different ways of thinking about the earth and our proper relationship to it. This book brings together writings on nature and environment that illuminate thought and action in this realm.
Environmental policy is broadly viewed as an oasis of democracy, unspoiled by crass capitalism and undominated by corporate interests. This book counters that view. The focus of Corporate Power and the Environment focuses on how U.S. economic elites—corporate decisionmakers and other individuals of substantial wealth—shape the content and implementation of U.S. environmental policy to their economic and political benefit. The author uses the management of the national forests and national parks, as well as wilderness preservation policies and federal clean air policies, as case studies to show corporate power in action in even the 'purest' of policy arenas.
When most people think of hazardous waste trading, they think of egregious dumping by U.S. and European firms on poor countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. But over 80 percent of the waste trade takes place between industrialized nations and is legal by domestic and international standards. In Waste Trading among Rich Nations, Kate O'Neill asks why some industrialized nations voluntarily import such wastes in the absence of pressing economic need. She focuses on Britain as an importer and Germany as an exporter and also looks at France, Australia, and Japan. According to O'Neill, most important in determining whether an industrialized democracy imports waste are two aspects ...
"With clarity and grace, Stephen Bocking tackles the complicated question of the role of scientific expertise in environmental policy making. Nature’s Experts is a timely and important book."—David H. Guston, author of Between Politics and Science: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research "This book by Stephen Bocking is as much about deliberative democracy as it is about science and the environment. Stephen Bocking’s treatment is deep, perceptive, and profoundly wise. He has caught the heart of present and future environmental science, politics, and democratic governance."—C. S. Holling, The Resilience Alliance and emeritus professor, Arthur R. Marshall Jr. Chair in Ecolo...
Technology, Development, and Democracy examines the growing role of the Internet in international affairs, from a source of mostly officially sanctioned information, to a venue where knowledge is often merged with political propaganda, rhetoric and innuendo. The Internet not only provides surfers with up-to-the-minute stories, including sound and visual images, and opportunities to interact with one another and experts on international issues, but also enables anyone with access to a computer, modem, and telephone line to influence international affairs directly. What does this portend for the future of international politics? The contributors respond by providing theoretical perspectives an...
Political ecology is one of the most vibrant fields of environmental research. This book introduces political ecology to a new generation of students in a daring new way: as an interdisciplinary approach to environmental research but also as a series of lived realities and a praxis for change. The origins of political ecology are often traced through an Anglo-American canon. In Discovering Political Ecology, Gustav Cederlöf and Alex Loftus instead take up the challenge of presenting the key conversations and the diverse traditions that have shaped this field with attention to its extensive international roots. Inspired by voices and research in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, the aut...
A fascinating collection of predictions for the end-times in the year 2000 The Year 2000 is at hand. The end of the millennium means many things to many people, but it has significance for almost everyone. A thousand years ago, monks stopped copying manuscripts and religious building projects came to a halt as panic swept Europe. Today, anxiety about global warming, government power, superviruses, even recycling, is on some level rooted in the fear of irreversible cataclysm. In a landscape shadowed by racial conflict, technological upheaval, AIDS, and nuclear weapons, we reasonably fear the end of history. 2000 looms large in our religious, political, and cultural imagination. But while 2000...
It is unrealistic and unwise to believe that water law will or should govern land use decisions, or alternatively that land use planning and regulation will or should govern water management. Nonetheless, the initially unsettling question of whether one area of law and policy should control the other provokes discussion and reflection on both why and how we might move toward greater integration of land and water controls. Wet Growth: Should Water Law Control Land Use? was written as a means to disseminate new ideas about the land/water interface in law and policy and provides an overview of the relevant issues, current trends toward integrating land and water controls, and prospects for further progress. The authors of this book describe the nature and costs of our currently fragmented management of land and water resources that results in unsustainable practices and suggest principles that should guide and direct our response to these problems. Although they take differing perspectives, the authors share common, or at least overlapping, observations about the fragmentation and integration of land and water controls.
Like many industrialized regions, the Philadelphia metro area contains pockets of environmental degradation: neighborhoods littered with abandoned waste sites, polluting factories, and smoke-belching incinerators. However, other neighborhoods within and around the city are relatively pristine. This eye-opening book reveals that such environmental inequalities did not occur by chance, but were instead the result of specific policy decisions that served to exacerbate endemic classism and racism. From Workshop to Waste Magnet presents Philadelphia’s environmental history as a bracing case study in mismanagement and injustice. Sociologist Diane Sicotte digs deep into the city’s past as a tit...