Calendar

The Environmental Impact of Human Activity: Is there a Problem? (PDF)

We begin with a very basic question: How severe are the environmental problems we are facing? Is the earth facing a looming environmental catastrophe? These authors believe we are approaching a planetary crisis.

Required Reading (100 pages):

Meadows, et al. "The Nature of Exponential Growth."

Hardin. "The Tragedy of the Commons."

Arrow, et al. "Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environment."

Perhaps we have passed the peak of the environmental crisis. Are we already well on the way to balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs?

Simon, and Kahn. "Introduction to the Resourceful Earth."
 
Easterbrook. "The Ecorealist Manifesto."
 
Ehrlich, and Ehrlich. "Wise Use and Anti-Environmental Science."

Switzer. Environmental Politics. Pp. 273-294.
 
Explore the concept of "ecological footprints" and calculate your own. http://www.rprogress.org/

Recommended Reading:
 
Baden, John, and Douglass Noonan. Managing the Commons.
This is an interesting critique of the "Tragedy of the Commons" thesis and suggested free-market solutions.
 
Ostrom, Elenor. Governing the Commons. 
A strong critique of Hardin's thesis.
 
Population Action International. People in Balance.
An interesting summary of the population-environment problem looking at water, forests, agriculture and pollution. Useful data and graphics. [Click the title to jump to the web page for the full text.]

Easterbrook, Gregg. A Moment on Earth.

Commanding Clean Water (PDF)

The Clean Water Act of 1972 was supposed to make all the waters of the U.S. clean by 1985. What happened and why?

Congress, concerned that government environmental agencies might become "captive" of the very industries they were supposed to monitor and regulate, put citizen enforcement provisions in the Clean Water Act. Quickly, environmental litigators and the courts became major players in environmental policy.

Required Reading (30 pages):

Switzer. Environmental Politics. Pp. 159-188.

Greve, Michael. "Private Enforcement, Private Rewards: How Environmental Citizen Suits Became an Entitlement Program."

Legislation Link: Clean Water Act.

Recommended Reading:

Freeman, A. Myrick, III. "Water Pollution Policy."

The Slippery Slope of Environmental Protection: The Case of Wetlands (PDF)

This class explores how the reach of a law can expand beyond what its original creators intended. We look at how a series of court cases broadened the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act and forced the US Army Corps of Engineers to protect wetlands--and then two decades later forced it to "unprotect" them.

Required Reading:

Federal District Court Case: United States v Holland (No. 73-623 (M.D. Fla. March 27, 1974.)

Supreme Court Case: United States v Riverside Bayview Homes (No. 84-703, December 4, 1985.)

Supreme Court Case: Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County, Petitioner v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, et al. (No. 99-1178, January 9, 2001.) (PDF)

Williams, Ted. "Who can Save a Wetland?"

Of Toxic Wastes and Government Failure (PDF)

This lecture examines how mass politics extended the environmental mandate, bringing about stringent regulations and standards for hazardous waste control. What mobilizes public participation in environmental policy and how does that participation affect policy? How does the public grapple with complex scientific and technical issues? How do government and media organizations respond to public pressures?

Required Reading (84 pages):

Layzer. "Love Canal: Hazardous Wastes and the Politics of Fear." In The Environmental Case. Pp 52-77.

Switzer. Environmental Politics. Pp. 113-138.

Downs, Anthony. "Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue-Attention Cycle." (PDF)

Recommended Reading:

Greve, and Smith. Environmental Politics: Public Costs, Private Rewards. Chap. 4.

Layzer. "Government Secrets at Rocky Flats." In The Environmental Case. Pp. 78-101.

The Reagan Revolution: Rethinking Environmental Policy (PDF)

The Reagan administration comes to power critical of "big government" in general and government regulation in particular--especially environmental regulation. Arguing that environmental regulation was hobbling the economy the administration tried to dismantle the environmental framework that had been established the previous decade. One of its more lasting efforts was to require cost-benefit analysis for environmental regulations.

Required Reading:

Whittington, Dale, and W. Norton Grubb. "Economic Analysis in Regulatory Decisions."

Farrow, Scott, and Michael Toman. "Using Cost-Benefit Analysis to Improve Environmental Regulations."

Responses to Farrow and Toman by:

Eads, George. Environment 41, 4: 4.
Lave, Lester. Environment 41, 4: 4.
Farrow, and Toman. 41, 4: 45.

Grunwald, Michael. "How Corps Turned Doubt Into a Lock."

Environmental Equity and Justice (PDF)

There can be no doubt that 30 years of environmental policy has lessened the pollution burden on the nation, slowed the loss of ecological communities and species, and improved our quality of life. But not all Americans have benefited equally. Some Americans--minorities and the poor, in particular--may have enjoyed no benefit at all. Is this "unfair" distribution of environmental benefits just an artifact of policy or does it reflect racial and class biases in our society?

Required Reading (39 pages):

First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. "Principles of Environmental Justice."

Bullard. "Anatomy of Environmental Racism."

Krauss. "Women of Color on the Front Line."

Friedman, David. "The Environmental Racism Hoax."

Recommended Reading:

Rinquist, Evan J. "Environmental Justice: Normative Concerns and Empirical Evidence."

Property Rights and Suburban Sprawl (PDF)

This class focuses on suburban "sprawl" and its impacts on landscape: development, habitat fragmentation, etc.

Required Reading:

Sierra Club. Sprawl: The Dark Side of the American Dream.

Layzer. "Backlash: Wise Use, Property Rights and the Anti-Environmental Movement." Chap. 10 in The Environmental Case. Pp. 238-263.

Supreme Court Cases:

• Babbit v. Sweethome (94-859, June 29, 1995.)
• Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, et al. Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island (No.99 -2047, June 28, 2001.) (PDF)
• Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc., et al., v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, et al. (No. 00-1167) (PDF)

Recommended Reading:

Stoel, Thomas B., Jr. "Reining in Urban Sprawl."

Comparing Environment Policymaking Around the World (PDF)

For the past few months we have looked at how institutions, interest groups, elected officials, etc. define and shape solutions to US environmental problems. In this lecture we look briefly at other countries and their experience with acid rain. We consider whether different political institutions result in different outcomes, or if cultural, economic, or demographic factors are more important for explaining differences among national environmental policies.

Required Reading:

McCormick, John. "Acid Politics." [Skim]

------. "Britain."

Boehmer-Christiansen, Sonja, and Jim Skea. "Government, Politics and Environmental Policy-making."

------. "Forests and Power: German Precaution."

Big Solutions for Big Problems: Deep Ecology and Bioregionalism

Some believe that the Earth cannot be saved untill humans recognize that they are a minor player in the natural world. Putting the Earth first--well ahead of human greed and desire--is the path of deep ecology. Can chaining yourself naked to trees or blowing up shopping malls save the earth?

Layzer. "Ecosystem-based Solutions: Restoring the Everglades." Chap. 12 in The Environmental Case. Pp. 289-318.

Foreman. "Putting the Earth First."

Naess. "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement."

Dodge. "Living By Life: Some Bioregional Theory and Practice."

Eckersley. "Ecocentrism Explained and Defended."

Climate Change and Other Global Environmental Issues (PDF)

Bio-homogenization, alien species, climate change

Required Reading:

Switzer. Environmental Politics. Pp. 213-242, 295-310.

Layzer. "Climate Change: the Challenges of Formulating International Environmental Policy." In The Environmental Case. Pp. 1-24, 209-237.

Recommended Reading:

Wapner. "Politics Beyond the State."

Brecher, and Costello. "The Lilliput Strategy."

Dobson. "Strategies for Green Change."

Skolnikoff, Eugene B. "The Role of Science in Policy."