Environmental Policy Analysis: Learning from the Past for the Future,
25 Years of Research
by Peter Knoepfel
ISBN: 3540731482
This book is relevant with respect to many of the issues being discussed concerning the environment in political arenas across the globe today. Environmental policies in America continue to develop from the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, to the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts that have been endlessly updated since their creation and bogged down with litigation regarding corporate rights and conservation policies, to here, in the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are evolving these initial environmental policies through a series of Global Climate Policy Acts. Traditionally, policies have taken the form of going through an evaluation period where they are monitored while a small-scale implementation period ensues where improvements can be made upon the policy. The government aids corporations in adjusting to the new regulations through credits, subsidies, or attractive financing. While fossil fuels have enjoyed this position in the past, renewable energy technologies are starting to claim government funds. This book also looks at the concept of property rights at the local level and makes claims that are in line with sustainable resource extraction. The political scientists who produced this work, through their study of the evolution of policy over the past 25 years have presented the public with poignant lessons at a time when the current leaders of world are struggling to draft history’s first truly global treaty in an effort to protect the planet’s ecosystems.
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How do governmental policies affect the environment? More specifically, how do governmental policies affect corporate behavior? Some would argue that the hand of government does not have a role to play in regulating business. Of course, this is logical and irrational at the same time. Human behavior shows a tendency for the stronger to prey upon the weaker; there are countless examples in business of this type of behavior. Some say that the Big Leagues of business have no room for sympathy or sensitivity, but corporate behavior in certain instances crosses a line of acceptability with regard to ethics, specifically in relation to environmental degradation. The recent collapse of the mortgage financial giants shows that hyperactive short-term gains neglect a higher sense of responsibility to society. Cashing-out by dumping debt, to the detriment of society in general, leaves capitalism weaker. Like sporting events, professional business games need a referee to make the game more fair and enjoyable for those who wish to participate in it; and the way environmentalism works is simple, the more people who participate, the more the environment benefits.
So, if we accept that the government is going to regulate business so that the environment will benefit, we need to start asking what policies we can initiate that will have the potential to leave the natural world in a better state than it is currently in. How can we alleviate some of the distress that that the earth is currently experiencing? Without regulation of any kind, human behavior generally will take individual gains usually at the expense of the environment. It was true in colonial America and it is true today, but we do not have to go so far back into history to find an example; let’s take a moment and look at a current regional example in Mexico regarding industrialization without regulations and the environmental degradation that ensued.
Oftentimes over the course of the last eight years, the American government has held up their relations with Mexico as a free trade success story. The talk has been about how an 'open borders' approach has allowed Mexico and America’s respective gross domestic product figures to rise. Free trade is good for business, right?
It might be good for business in the short-term, but we are finding out that free trade, without regulation in the form of rules of environmental conduct, is not sustainable past the short-term. In the long-term, Mexico is left with a degraded environment and mountains of debt and lawsuits regarding the clean-up and pollution, and America is left with millions of environmental refugees and a broader consumptive appetite. Of course, this story weaves into it all of the intricacies of the NAFTA agreement with all of its advocates and critics, but the simple, gross fact of the matter is that, according to the most reliable professional figures, almost every environmental problem in Mexico has worsened since the late eighties when North American trade opened up new markets to Mexico.
What caused these problems in Mexico? Why did the environment in Mexico get so ravaged by industrial corporations? Surely, in the past, America and Europe have been able to freely set up models of corporate industrialization. Today, many countries in the world are in the process of implementing their industrial age at a time when the world is already full of emission litigation and climate regulations.
It is surprising to learn how directly applicable Kuznet’s Environmental Curve is when it is used to analyze this example from Mexico. As Mexico continued liberalizing its trade policies, their ecological communities began dirtying and dying. During this time, municipal solid waste, air pollution, water contamination, and soil erosion all rose significantly. The cost of cleaning up Mexico’s environment after their industrialization period was in the range of billions per year. China’s figures dwarf those from Mexico; India is not far behind China in terms of pollution; the United States continues along with business as usual in the face of domestic consumption figures and apparent culpability for contributing to the inducement of climate change.
According to Kuznet’s curve, the rising incomes spawned by industrialization were supposed to offset environmental contamination much more quickly than is actually happening in reality. In regards to many of America’s laws pertaining to environmental contamination, corporate legal teams have portions of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act of the 1970s locked up in litigation so as to prolong the free ride they have enjoyed since the beginning of this country in terms of using the environment as a dumping ground. This legal stalling is the preferred strategy of business litigation; meanwhile, business grows unsustainably, and the environment goes deeper into distress. It is only after the poisoning of the environment reaches a certain level that it becomes necessary to start cleaning up the mess because human health begins to falter, and long-term costs start to eat into short-term gains. The economic costs associated with cleaning up the environment in Mexico keeps a ceiling on the overall economic growth of the country; we won’t even delve into the health issues in Mexico here or into the topic of environmental refugees for that matter.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, without environmental standards attached to it, has significant problems regarding sustainability. In this example, the Mexican government cut environmental protection as they increased favorable industrialization policy, and the U.S. was more than happy to take advantage of the situation. It seems as though the Kuznet’s curve must be adjusted in this example to take into account some of the less than desirable human traits that come to the foreground during times of limited resources. Perhaps, wealthy societies will figure out a way to export environmental degradation. Perhaps progressive societies, instead of adopting environmental policies, will choose to stand idle and not pass environmental legislation so as to keep wealth concentrated. Perhaps, we will destroy even more ecosystems in a panic to save the planet. Perhaps Kuznet was right, though, and over the long-term our society will realize the importance of keeping our air, water, and soil clean.
In terms of environmental sustainability AND hyperactive industrial growth, the green energy sector is starting to show its promising potential. Green power can come from many different renewable sources, and many of these sources are actual energy choices that consumers have today; many of us already burn a 10% blend of ethanol in our cars, solar panels are becoming common on more and more homes, electric cars are closer to reality than they have ever been before, many utility companies are realizing the long-term cost saving from building wind farms, superconducting wire and smart grids are replacing the old electrical transmission system, to name just a few.
Of course, even renewable sources year after year have an effect on the environment; some are less dependable in terms of intermittency than others, while some are more environmentally damaging than others. The U. S. Department of Energy advocates energy efficiency, wind, solar, and geothermal power as our best sources of power domestically. Other sources, like some forms of ethanol and hydrogen, are less desirable at the moment because according to experts, they are either unsustainable or too expensive, respectively, at the moment. The point being made here is that we have energy choices and the availability of more choices in the future comes directly from sustainable government energy policies.
In relation specifically to renewable energy choices and sustainability, public policy is a long way behind public opinion. There seems to be an increasing demand for environmental sensitivity, and many innovative technologies are on their way to market to meet that demand. Here, in the United States, our energy policy still supports oil and coal with price supports. What this means, essentially, is that people are demanding renewable energy sources, but their government is not building the infrastructure to meet that demand. Instead, the United States government is still tinkering with record-breaking oil executive pay while they neglect their obligation to even figure out how they will play catch-up to the rest of the world in terms of energy development later on.
In many cases, consumers have taken the power of energy choice into their own hands, and those that can afford it, are paying higher energy prices in order to heat their homes and meet their power needs with a clean conscience. In some cases like Massachusetts and California, States have taken the issue of environmental policy and energy choice into their own hands and passed comprehensive legislation that is more in line with the growing environmental standards across the globe. In these states, the prices of different renewable energy technologies have become competitive or only slightly higher than traditional fossil fuels. This cost parity gives renewable energy a boost, but as long as renewable energy technology remains such a small share of the entire energy market, it will not be economically competitive. Economies of scale tend to bring down production costs and increase efficiency overall when they are specifically applied to energy production.
So, consumers are searching for alternative energy sources, and the Environmental Protection Agency, while stalemating the American public with respect to greenhouse gasses, has created the Power Profiler in order to assist customers with finding renewable sources of energy in their area. Using a zip code, customers can find out about the fuel mix used by the local utilities in their area to generate energy. They can also compare the air emission rates from electrical power generation and compare the rates from their local area to national averages. Some people are surprised to see that coal and nuclear are the predominant fuel in their area. Other people are surprised to find out that renewable sources are so insignificant in overall power generation. As the demand for renewable energy rises, the government and the business world will have to submit to the general public’s demands for a cleaner environment; this is a democracy after all, isn’t it?
________________________________________web recommendation
NRDC, Natural Resources Defense Council
www.nrdc.org
NRDC is an environmental action organization with 1.2 million members. NRDC was founded in 1970 by a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement. NRDC lawyers helped write some of America's bedrock environmental laws. Today, they have a staff of more than 300 lawyers, scientists, and policy experts and are well respected in media. NRDC is currently working at curbing global warming, getting toxic chemicals out of the environment, moving America beyond oil, reviving our oceans, saving wildlife and wild places, and helping China go green.
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