MSE Retreat: Environmental Policy ENVR 610

Peter Brown

Mark Goldberg

Learning Objectives• to describe the major impacts that humans have on the environment

and to describe the major reasons why these occur; • to appreciate, criticize, and use the I=PAT(E) framework for thinking

about personal and policy responses of the impact of these alarming conditions;

• to understand the strengths and weaknesses of some of the policy tools often used in environmental policy, such as risk analysis and cost/benefit analysis frameworks;

• to be able to articulate in writing, and provide appropriate arguments as appropriate, what actions can be taken to remedy a major environmental problem;

• to speak thoroughly and convincingly on specific environmental issues; and

• to deepen, articulate, and show the consequences of a sense of personal responsibility for life’s prospects.

Evaluation

• Class commentary/critique, class participation (25%)

• Presentation (25%)

• 20-25 page fully documented paper (50%)

Syllabus

• Modular

• Based on I=PAT(E)

• I =impact, P = population, A = affluence, T = technology, E = ethics

Texts

• Peter G. Brown, The Commonwealth of Life,

• Herman Daly, Beyond Growth

• Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

• James Gustaf Speth, Red Sky at Morning

• CDROM: various articles and readings for the course

The students

• 4 from the option; 13 from other programmes• Distribution

– Agricul. economics: MSc(1)– Anthropology: PhD(1), MA(1)– Atm & ocean sci: PhD(1)– Bioresource eng: MSc(4)– French lit: MA(1)– Geography: MSc(2), PhD(1)– Parasitology: PhD(1)– Philosophy: PhD(1)– Renewable resource:MSc(2)– Urban planning: MSc(1)

Classes

1. IPATE2. Climate change

(science+mitigation+adaptation)3. The collapse of worldview, “the path in

the thicket,” and the formulation of the land ethic

4. Human and nature centered ethics, relations between evolution and ethics—does ethics code adaptive behaviours

Classes (cont)

5. The population explosion and some cascading effects of human lifestyles on the environment: the influenza pandemic as an example

6. Reducing Human Numbers: The Demographic Transition; Education; Family Planning; Limiting/selling reproduction rights; starvation/malnutrition, disease, is the problem solving itself?

7. Technological Innovation for the Environment (Guest lecture by Tatiana Koveshnikova, York University)

Classes (cont)

8. Is Sustainable Development a Coherent and Workable Idea?

9. The Great Expansion: What are : affluence, growth, stocks and flows, the life support and assimilation budgets of the biosphere… Peter Victor over Skype.

10.Consequences of growth: air pollution and effects on the health of species

11.Student presentations….

The Papers (16)

• Climate change:– Afforestation and mitigation of climate change

• Ecosystems:– Invasive species in ships’ ballast water– Poverty impact on biodiversity

• Education:– Steps toward an environmentally literate citizenry in the United

States

• Energy:– Environmental impacts of biofuel production– Application of the precautionary principle in the Athabasca Oil

Sands– Industrial Scale Wind Power

Papers (cont)

• Ethics:– Cree beliefs and practices that enhance biological

diversity

• Exploitation of natural resources:– The World Bank and the Gold Mines of Guyana :– History of Forestry in Québec

• Food production and environmental consequences:– The Green Revolution

Papers (cont)

• Population:– Population policies and human reproductive rights

• Public Health:– Environment and health: Managing for Resilience– Precautionary principle and public health– Drinking water and cholera in Bolivia

• Water:– Water and energy in groundwater exploitation in

Gujarat State

Students’ Comments

• Overall evaluation: 4.4

• Too much reading

• Insufficient time for discussion/interaction

• More on existing policy, its assumptions, shortcomings, and successes.

• More on conceptual foundations of policy.

• Want to feel empowered, some did some didn’t

Redesign of Course

• Will still use IPAT(E) as a paradigm• More on policy frameworks and foundations• Will still use climate change as the main

example• Will retain component on ethics• Will develop more fully:

– Micro and Macroeconomics– Risk assessment– Cost-benefit analysis

• Will have a second course in the winter term