SUNY series in Environmental Public Policy – serie

The evidence is increasingly persuasive. We are changing the way our planet's physical systems work-irrevocably. These changes are global and interconnected and unavoidable. They are upon us already, making it virtually impossible for any modern society to continue its present trajectory of growth.This book provides a penetrating analysis of how we have come to this point, of why science and technology will fail to solve these problems, and of how we as a society must change in order to avoid ecological catastrophe. The scope is broad, the urgency of the message is impossible to ignore.

The Death of Industrial Civilization explains how the contemporary ecological crisis within industrial society is caused by the values inherent in unlimited economic growth and competitive materialism. Kassiola shows that the limits-to-growth critique of industrial civilization is the most effective stance against what seems to be a dominant and invincible social order. He prescribes the social changes that must be implemented in order to transform industrial society into a sustainable and more satisfying one.

This book provides the most detailed and comprehensive examination to date of the impact of environmentalism upon contemporary political thought. It sets out to disentangle the various strands of Green political thought and explain their relationship to the major Western political traditions. Environmentalism and Political Theory represents the consolidation of a new field of political inquiry that is destined to become an increasingly important component of political studies and political reporting worldwide. An interdisciplinary study that builds bridges between environmental philosophy, ecological thought, and political inquiry, this book employs a range of new insights from environmental philosophy to outline a particular Green political perspective.

Argues that modern schools reinforce an unsustainable worldview and offers a framework for reshaping education to support ecological awareness, interdependence, and a more sustainable society.In Education and the Environment, Gregory A. Smith offers a clear and urgent rethinking of modern education. Rather than treating environmental crisis and school reform as separate problems, Smith reveals how deeply they are connected. Our educational systems, he argues, often reflect and reinforce a worldview rooted in endless growth, competition, and consumption—precisely the mindset that has contributed to today's environmental and social challenges.With careful analysis and practical vision, Smith traces how this worldview took hold in education and shows how schools unintentionally prepare students for a society that may no longer be sustainable. He then turns toward possibility: what it would mean to reshape teaching and learning around interdependence, ecological awareness, and long-term responsibility.Blending critique with constructive pathways forward, Education and the Environment, invites educators, policymakers, and concerned readers to reconsider what schools are for—and what kind of future they are helping to create.A powerful contribution to the conversation on education, sustainability, and social change, Education and the Environment challenges us to rethink not only what we teach, but how, and why.

Exposes the faulty assumptions that underlie modern education in the areas of moral education, creativity, and intelligence, showing how these assumptions must be changed in order to produce an ecologically sustainable culture.This book is a wake-up call for environmentalists who need to consider how current educational ideals and practices undermine efforts to create a more sustainable future. It is also a wake-up call for educators who continue to base their reform efforts on the primacy of the individual, while ignoring the fact that the individual is nested in culture, and culture is nested in (and thus dependent upon) natural ecosystems. Bowers argues that the modern way of understanding moral education, creativity, intelligence, and the role of direct experience in the learning process cannot be supported by evidence from such fields as anthropology, cultural linguistics, and the sociology of knowledge.

In the tradition of Walden and A River Runs Through It, this is a vivid account of the Crazy Mountains in Montana, urging us to awaken from the spell of technology.Reality is slipping away, writes David Strong in Crazy Mountains, and is being eroded by a glut of technological devices and commodities. But all is not lost if we learn to care for the things at the center of the good life.Written in the tradition of Walden and A River Runs Through It with philosophical clarity and literary power, this book opens with a vivid account of the Crazy Mountains of Montana, an island of high, craggy peaks, forest, meadows, and rushing streams, surrounded by the sweep of the high plains. A newly-bulldozed road and a planned timber sale jeopardize the wild character of the range and trigger the wide-ranging reflections of this remarkable book.Technology is transforming Earth in increasingly extensive ways, and Strong urges us to awaken from the spell of technology-from the unexamined belief that its devices and commodities make our lives good. He warns that even an environmental ethic can be subverted by the glamorous pull of the consumer culture. From wilderness we learn what things are real and how this reality can re-order our lives, our communities, and our nation. We learn another way to be.This is a one-of-a-kind book. It soars gracefully, yet presents a comprehensive vision of the challenge wilderness offers to our contemporary culture.

Argues that environmentalists must expand their political involvement to include the reform of public schools and universities, and that education must be revamped to support ecologically sustainable paths for society.

This comprehensive book traces the warning, planning, and response to the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May 1980, as seen through the eyes of key actors in the emergency. Based on first-hand accounts by 130 officials of government, private industry, and volunteer organizations-individuals who played prominent roles in preparing for and dealing with the eruption-it represents a unique overview of the problems and procedures involved in learning about, planning for, and dealing with a major disaster.Ironically, the first official warning had come as early as two years previously. More warnings came several months before the explosion. Yet many persons involved either ignored them or remained unaware that they could be affected. The book shows how this happened, suggesting steps that can be taken to insure future preparedness for large-scale emergencies.

This book explores the philosophical background of questions on environmental justice. It focuses on theories of distributive justice, primarily those which concern the manner in which benefits and burdens should be allocated when there is a scarcity of benefits (relative to people's wants or needs) and a surfeit of burdens. It is one of those rare philosophy books that is at once accessible and sophisticated, as it introduces both philosophers and people interested in environmental studies, law, and economics to germane developments in the philosophical treatment of the question of justice. Since environmental concerns are uniquely global, theories of distributive justice are tested most thoroughly for their comprehensiveness when they are applied to environmental matters. Consequently, most illustrations and applications in this book are drawn from contexts of environmental concerns including property rights, human rights, animal rights, general utility, and hypothetical contracts.

The market economy attends well to some dimensions of human life and does not even see others. It is sensitive to those values pertaining to what can be bought and sold but is blind to others that cannot be turned into commodities, such as the integrity of the natural world and the quality of human relationships. The market registers the costs and benefits to transactors acting as social atoms but is impervious to the costs of tearing apart the larger wholes-families, communities, the biosphere-that are vital to the quality of our lives.In The Illusion of Choice, Andrew Bard Schmookler shows how the market system unfolds according to a logic of its own, shaping everything within its domain-the landscape, social institutions, even human values-to serve its own inherent purposes. This understanding helps illuminate what has been most troubling to generations of Americans struggling to create a more humane society, and provides the conceptual tools by which we can become less the instruments of our powerful systems and more the masters of our destiny.Here is a powerful critique of the market, not couched in the Marxist economics of surplus value and exploitation, but drawing upon mainstream economics to shows how we all have a stake in making change. Schmookler sets out a program to help us humanize the market, not by overthrowing it but be correcting its biases, not by revolution but by strengthening the democratic process. Perhaps we can now add the most important choice to the abundance of choices the market provides us: the choice of developing into the kind of society we really want to be.

The environmental movement is having a marked impact on national and international politics. This book examines the dominant ethics, attitudes, and moral values behind the international environmental movement and analyzes how it has influenced national policies around the world. In addition, it assesses the effectiveness of international law and international organizations in improving natural resource conservation.

In some coastal regions of the United States, such as western Louisiana, offshore oil development has long been welcomed. In others, such as northern California, it has been vehemently opposed. This book explores the reasons behind this paradox, looking at the people, the regions, and the issues in sociological and historical contexts.What has been in very short supply on this issue, as in a growing number of other cases of technological gridlock, is balanced analysis. That is what this book provides. The authors' case studies, derived from interviews with Louisiana and California residents and from environmental impact statements, demonstrate that easy answers are not the most valid ones. The region that should be considered unusual, they find, is coastal Louisiana, where historical, social, and environmental factors combine to favor the offshore oil industry. But this combination of factors, they argue, is unlikely to be found in other coastal regions of the U.S. in the near future.

In some coastal regions of the United States, such as western Louisiana, offshore oil development has long been welcomed. In others, such as northern California, it has been vehemently opposed. This book explores the reasons behind this paradox, looking at the people, the regions, and the issues in sociological and historical contexts.What has been in very short supply on this issue, as in a growing number of other cases of technological gridlock, is balanced analysis. That is what this book provides. The authors' case studies, derived from interviews with Louisiana and California residents and from environmental impact statements, demonstrate that easy answers are not the most valid ones. The region that should be considered unusual, they find, is coastal Louisiana, where historical, social, and environmental factors combine to favor the offshore oil industry. But this combination of factors, they argue, is unlikely to be found in other coastal regions of the U.S. in the near future.

Argues that environmentalists must expand their political involvement to include the reform of public schools and universities, and that education must be revamped to support ecologically sustainable paths for society.

In a groundbreaking study, Lester Milbrath argues the need for a deep change in our belief structure. Environmentalists: Vanguard for a New Society describes a revolution in process. Basing his work on the views of modern environmentalists, Milbrath delineates a new social paradigm-a new understanding and revised values-to show how the world functions in a way different from what our institutions and culture presuppose. It is a book about our civilization, the human condition, and the quality of life.Many of the ideas and much of the evidence in this volume are derived from a three-nation study of environmental beliefs and values. Teams of scholars in England, Germany, and the United States distributed questionnaires to the general public, and to public officials, business and labor leaders, and environmentalists. The answers to these questions are tabulated and the inferences are drawn in this timely study, which is certain to provoke controversy and a reconsideration of basic beliefs.

This comprehensive book traces the warning, planning, and response to the eruption of Mount St. Helens in May 1980, as seen through the eyes of key actors in the emergency. Based on first-hand accounts by 130 officials of government, private industry, and volunteer organizations-individuals who played prominent roles in preparing for and dealing with the eruption-it represents a unique overview of the problems and procedures involved in learning about, planning for, and dealing with a major disaster.Ironically, the first official warning had come as early as two years previously. More warnings came several months before the explosion. Yet many persons involved either ignored them or remained unaware that they could be affected. The book shows how this happened, suggesting steps that can be taken to insure future preparedness for large-scale emergencies.

Controversies in Environmental Policy presents comprehensive analyses of the politics surrounding decision-making on such environmental issues as land use, toxic waste management, new federalism, and economic incentive. It recognizes that environmental policy-making is a blend of politics, technology, and economics, and provides a sophisticated understanding of the interrelationship of the three.The contributors to this volume examine the underlying value systems of the proponents of government-dominated solutions and private-enterprise-dominated solutions to the questions of environmental policy. This book is unique in that it exposes the biases inherent in both sides of the debate, analyzing the differing views on the effectiveness of such policy evaluation strategies as cost benefit analysis and regulatory agency control. It provides conservative and liberal opinions on the social and economic impact of the Reagan administration's effort to shape environmental policy.Controversies in Environmental Policy recognizes the fundamental differences in values, strategies, and desired outcomes among those involved in the debates on environmental policy. Disguised by a fragile consensus throughout the 1970s, these divisions emerged with the election of the Reagan administration. The basic divisions are not new and are consistent with the differences in other policy areas.

This book examines the relationship between agricultural land use and wildlife protection in two eastern African countries-Kenya and Tanzania. Although both elements are vital to the societies and economies of these countries, environmentally sensitive land-use practices and effective wildlife management are seriously lacking in Kenya and Tanzania. Within the broader context of environmental public policy, the book traces the origins of these problems in the different policy experiences of the two countries and explores their current dimensions and magnitudes. It also recommends future research and policy reforms that must be undertaken if Kenya and Tanzania are to achieve their developmental goals while avoiding environmental disaster and the extinction of their endangered wild animals. Through its analysis, the book provides a better understanding of similar conflicts wherever they appear in a world of increasing competition among threatened life forms.