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The precautionary principle—which holds that action to address threats of serious or irreversible environmental harm should be taken even in the absence of scientific certainty—has been accepted as a key feature of environmental law throughout the European Union. In the United States, however, it is still widely unknown, and much of what has been written on the topic takes a negative view. Precautionary Politics provides a comprehensive analysis of the precautionary principle—its origins and development, its meaning and rationale, its theoretical context, and its policy implications. Kerry Whiteside looks at the application of the principle (and the controversies it has stirred) and compares European and American attitudes toward it and toward environmental regulation in general.

Too often, Whiteside argues, American critics of the precautionary principle pay insufficient attention to how the principle has been debated, refined, and elaborated elsewhere. Precautionary Politics fills this gap. Whiteside demonstrates the different responses of Europe and the United States, first by describing the controversy over genetically modified crops, and then by using this example throughout the book to illustrate application of the precautionary principle in different contexts. He contrasts the European view that new types of risk require specially adapted modes of regulation with the American method of science-based risk assessment, and argues that despite Bush administration opposition, U.S.-European convergence on precaution is possible. Finally, he looks at the ways in which participatory innovation can help produce environmentally positive results. Whiteside's systematic defense of the precautionary principle will be an important resource for students, scholars, activists, and policymakers and is particularly suitable for classroom use. ... Read more

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In this book Robert Brulle draws on a broad range of empirical andtheoretical research to investigate the effectiveness of U.S.environmental groups. Brulle shows how Critical Theory--in particularthe work of Jürgen Habermas--can expand our understanding of thesocial causes of environmental degradation and the political actionsnecessary to deal with it. He then develops both a pragmatic and a moralargument for broad-based democratization of society as a prerequisite tothe achievement of ecological sustainability.

From the perspectives of frame analysis, resource mobilization, andhistorical sociology, using data on more than one hundred environmentalgroups, Brulle examines the core beliefs, structures, funding, andpolitical practices of a wide variety of environmental organizations. Heidentifies the social processes that foster the development of ademocratic environmental movement and those that hinder it. He concludeswith suggestions for how environmental groups can make theirorganizational practices more democratic and politically effective. ... Read more

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The Chemical Weapons Convention is a recently signed treaty that requires the dismantling and destruction of the massive stockpiles that many countries (most notably the United States and Russia) have built over the years.However, no simple or agreed-upon means exist to accomplish this admirable goal of the removal of chemical weapons.National security experts assert that the country, and the world as a whole, will be better off if chemical weapons are eliminated, while environmental experts assert that there is no way to accomplish this ambitious plan while conforming to existing national and community health and safety standards.
Koplow examines the forced merger between the national security and the environmental policy makers, recognizing the necessity but warning of potential and actual conflicts in missions. Environmentalism and arms control are two crucial sectors of American and international public life that have long existed in segregated "parallel universes." Now these groups must ... Read more

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This collected volume of essays provides a set of fresh and pertinent perspectives on environment and security coming from the leading South Asian scholars on the subject. ... Read more

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Evidence of climate change, resource shortages and biodiversity loss is growing in significance year by year. This second edition of Environmental Policy explains how policy can respond and bring about greater sustainability in individual lifestyles, corporate strategies, national policies and international relations. The book discusses the interaction between environmental and human systems, suggesting environmental policy as a way to steer human systems to function within environmental constraints.

The second edition has been completely updated to reflect advances in scholarship (for example developments in governance theory) and the increasing primacy of climate policy within environmental policy as a whole. Key political, social and economic concepts are used to explain how effective environmental policies can be designed, implemented and evaluated. Environmental problems, the role of human beings in creating them and sustainable development are all introduced. Environmental policy formulation, implementation and evaluation are discussed within three specific contexts: the firm, the nation state and at an international level. The book reviews the relationship of economics, science and technology to environmental policy. It ends by reflecting upon the predicament of humankind in the twenty first century and the potential of achieve sustainability through the use of the environmental policy ‘toolbox’.

Environmental Policy is an accessible text with a multi-disciplinary perspective. Lively case studies drawn from a range of international examples, and completely updated for this second edition, illustrate issues such as climate change, international trade, tourism and human rights. It includes chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and links to relevant web resources.

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Sussman, Glenn; Daynes, Byron W.; West, Jonathan P. American Politics and the Environment*\ In order to effect change in environmental policy, it is necessary to understand the politics of environmental decision-making and how political actors operate within political institutions. American Politics and the Environment offers a unique behavioral and institutional approach, this new book provides readers with a consistent theoretical framework they can use from chapter to chapter to help them better grasp the material. Three boxed features in each chapter-one highlighting a person, one presenting a case study, and another investigating the issue of air pollution-offer real world examples and illustrations and provide the opportunity for analysis. For those interested in environmental politics, and environmental policy making. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Decent coverage, wretched writing...
I've been required to read this book for a college class I'm currently taking, and I think the only way to get through it (I'm in the middle now) without pulling my hair out and cursing the author(s) is to leave this review.The writing is annoying.Moreover, consequently, at the same time, nonetheless, although, however, at the same time, then again, also, furthermore -- every other sentence seems to begin with a transitional phrase of some sort or something similar, as if the author's very thinking process relies on juxtapositions and introductory clauses... it's just annoying.Sometimes it comes across as 2-dimensional thinking on a 3-dimensional subject.The information provided seems adequate, but it's hard to respect a book when you can't get past the writing.It sounds too much like someone pretending to be educated -- I hope the research involved had higher standards. ... Read more

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In 1983, the U.N. General Assembly created the World Commission on Environment and Development, an independent committee of twenty-two members, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister of Norway. Designed to examine global environment and development to the year 2000 and beyond, the commission seeks to reassess critical problems, to formulate realistic proposals for solving them, and to raise the level of understanding and commitment to the issues of environment and development.

Rather than presenting a gloom and doom report about the destruction of natural resources, Our Common Future offers an agenda advocating the growth of economies based on policies that do not harm, and can even enhance, the environment. The commission recognizes that the time has come for a marriage of economy and ecology, in order to ensure the growth of human progress through development without bankrupting the resources of future generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting, but . . .
While the topic of this text, sustainable development, is interesting, the text is not.The first chapter provides most of what is necessary to understand the commission's findings.The 300+ pages which follow are filled with too many examples, which disrupts the flow of the book. ... Read more

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Concern over environmental problems is prompting us to reexamine established thinking about society and politics. The challenge is to find a way for the public’s concern for the environment to become more integral to social, economic, and political decision making. Two interpretations have dominated Western portrayals of the nature-politics relationship, what John Meyer calls the dualist and the derivative. The dualist account holds that politics--and human culture in general--is completely separate from nature. The derivative account views Western political thought as derived from conceptions of nature, whether Aristotelian teleology, the clocklike mechanism of early modern science, or Darwinian selection. Meyer examines the nature-politics relationship in the writings of two of its most pivotal theorists, Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes, and of contemporary environmentalist thinkers. He concludes that we must overcome the limitations of both the dualist and the derivative interpretations if we are to understand the relationship between nature and politics. Human thought and action, says Meyer, should be considered neither superior nor subservient to the nonhuman natural world, but interdependent with it. In the final chapter, he shows how struggles over toxic waste dumps in poor neighborhoods, land use in the American West, and rainforest protection in the Amazon illustrate this relationship and point toward an environmental politics that recognizes the experience of place as central. ... Read more

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The continuous rise in the profile of the environment in politics reflects growing concern that we may be facing a large-scale ecological crisis. The new edition of this highly acclaimed textbook surveys the politics of the environment, providing a comprehensive and comparative introduction to its three components: ideas, activism and policy.Part I explores environmental philosophy and green political thought; Part II considers parties and environmental movements; and Part III analyses policy-making and environmental issues at international, national and local levels.This second edition has been thoroughly updated with new and revised discussions of many topics including the ecological state, ecological citizenship, ecological modernisation and the Greens in government and also includes an additional chapter on 'Globalisation, Trade and the Environment'.As well as considering a wide variety of examples from around the world, this textbook features a glossary, guides to further study, chapter summaries and critical questions throughout. ... Read more

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books bought
I am satisfied with the purchase, they gooks were all in good condition and reached their destination in a timely manner, Even though used they are in good condition. ... Read more

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"The best introduction to global environmental politics I have seen."
—Andrew Hurrell, editor of Regionalism in World Politics

Human activity is changing the global environment on a scale unlike that of any other era. Environmental deterioration is now a global issue—ecologically, politically, and economically—that requires global solutions. Yet there is considerable disagreement over what kinds of strategies we should adopt in order to halt and reverse damage to the global ecosystem.

What kinds of international institutions are best suited to dealing with global environmental problems? Why are women and indigenous peoples still marginalized in global environmental politics? What are the consequences of the global ecological crisis for economic and security policies? The Global Politics of the Environment makes sense of the often seemingly irreconcilable answers to these questions. It focuses throughout on the tensions between mainstream strategies, which seek to build support for reforms through existing institutions, and radical critiques, which argue that environmental degradation is a symptom of a dysfunctional world order that must itself be transformed if we are to meet the challenge of saving the planet.

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Issues of the Day provides an easy way for students, academics, journalists, policymakers, and the public to learn about a diverse range of policy issues affecting the environment, energy, transportation, and public health. Each commentary gives a short assessment of a topic, summarizing in a non-technical way the current state of analysis or evidence on the issue, along with selected recommendations for further reading. The essays are written by world renowned scholars and provide useful insights on policy problems that are often complex and poorly understood.

Some of the topics covered include air pollution, hazardous waste, voluntary environmental programs, domestic and global climate policy design, fishery management, water quality, endangered species, forest fires, oil security, solar power, fuel taxes and fuel economy standards, alternative fuel vehicles, health and longevity, smoking, malaria, tuberculosis, and the environment and development.

The objective is to disseminate the findings of sound, objective research on the costs, benefits, and appropriate reform of public policies. The book provides a useful supplement for undergraduate- and graduate-level course reading, a reference guide for professionals, and a way for the general reader to quickly develop an informed perspective on the most important policy problems of the day. ... Read more

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As governments around the world grapple with the challenge of delivering environmental sustainability, attention has recently focused on the role that citizens should play in meeting the challenge. In advanced industrial countries such as ours, which operate in the political framework of liberal capitalism, what relevance can we place on 'environmental citizenship'?

This book looks at the obstacles and opportunities which exist within this context and examines the possibility of ethical investment, the social economy and considers whether there is space in the capitalist economy for environmental citizens to 'do the right thing?' ... Read more

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Society has limited hazard mitigation dollars to invest. Which actions will be most cost effective, considering the true range of impacts and costs incurred? In 1997, the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment began a two-year study with a panel of experts to help develop new strategies to identify and reduce the costs of weather-related hazards associated with rapidly increasing coastal development activities.

The Hidden Costs of Coastal Hazards presents the panel's findings, offering the first in-depth study that considers the costs of coastal hazards to natural resources, social institutions, business, and the built environment. Using Hurricane Hugo, which struck South Carolina in 1989, as a case study, it provides for the first time information on the full range of economic costs caused by a major coastal hazard event. The book:

• describes and examines unreported, undocumented, and hidden costs such as losses due to business interruption, reduction in property values, interruption of social services, psychological trauma, damage to natural systems, and others
• examines the concepts of risk and vulnerability, and discusses conventional approaches to risk assessment and the emerging area of vulnerability assessment
• recommends a comprehensive framework for developing and implementing mitigation strategies
• documents the human impact of Hurricane Hugo and provides insight from those who lived through it.

The Hidden Costs of Coastal Hazards takes a structured approach to the problem of coastal hazards, offering a new framework for community-based hazard mitigation along with specific recommendations for implementation. Decisionmakers-both policymakers and planners-who are interested in coastal hazard issues will find the book a unique source of new information and insight, as will private-sector decisionmakers including lenders, investors, developers, and insurers of coastal property. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great
Book in great condition.The book itself has been wonderful with helping me with research! ... Read more

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Helps the reader to distinguish between rhetoric and reality, making it an indispensable guide for decision-makers in government, international organizations, NGOs and industry as well as an essential sourcebook for academic institutions, students, and libraries serving the concerned public. ... Read more