Results by title

313 books match the query 'Environmental policy' and 10 start with p

cover of Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment

Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition

A Theory of Judgment

Howard Margolis

University of Chicago Press, 1988

What happens when we think? How do people make judgments? While different theories abound—and are heatedly debated—most are based on an algorithmic model of how the brain works. Howard Margolis builds a fascinating case for a theory that thinking is based on recognizing patterns and that this process is intrinsically a-logical. Margolis gives a Darwinian account of how pattern recognition evolved to reach human cognitive abilities.

Illusions of judgment—standard anomalies where people consistently misjudge or misperceive what is logically implied or really present—are often used in cognitive science to explore the workings of the cognitive process. The explanations given for these anomalous results have generally explained only the anomaly under study and nothing more. Margolis provides a provocative and systematic analysis of these illusions, which explains why such anomalies exist and recur.

Offering empirical applications of his theory, Margolis turns to historical cases to show how an individual's cognitive repertoire—the available cognitive patterns and their relation to cues—changes or resists changes over time. Here he focuses on the change in worldview occasioned by the Copernican discovery: not only how an individual might come to see things in a radically new way, but how it is possible for that new view to spread and become the dominant one. A reanalysis of the trial of Galileo focuses on social cognition and its interactions with politics.

In challenging the prevailing paradigm for understanding how the human mind works, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition is certain to stimulate fruitful debate.
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cover of Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture

Peak Oil

Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture

Matthew Schneider-Mayerson

University of Chicago Press, 2015

In recent years, the concept of “peak oil”—the moment when global oil production peaks and a train of economic, social, and political catastrophes accompany its subsequent decline—has captured the imagination of a surprisingly large number of Americans, ordinary citizens as well as scholars, and created a quiet, yet intense underground movement.

In Peak Oil, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson takes readers deep inside the world of “peakists,” showing how their hopes and fears about the postcarbon future led them to prepare for the social breakdown they foresee—all of which are fervently discussed and debated via websites, online forums, videos, and novels. By exploring the worldview of peakists, and the unexpected way that the fear of peak oil and climate change transformed many members of this left-leaning group into survivalists, Schneider-Mayerson builds a larger analysis of the rise of libertarianism, the role of oil in modern life, the political impact of digital technologies, the racial and gender dynamics of post-apocalyptic fantasies, and the social organization of environmental denial.
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cover of Peril in the Ponds: Deformed Frogs, Politics, and a Biologist's Quest

Peril in the Ponds

Deformed Frogs, Politics, and a Biologist's Quest

Judy Helgen

University of Massachusetts Press, 2012

Peril in the Ponds tells the story of a government biologist's investigation into the mystery of deformed frogs, an epidemic that grew during the 1990s and continues today. It provides an inside view of a highly charged environmental issue that aroused the attention of the public and the media and sparked controversies among scientists, politicians, and government agencies.

By the 1990s, wetlands across the United States were endangered from pollution and decades of drainage to convert them into farmland and urban developments. But when deformed frogs—many with missing legs or eyes, footless stumps, or misshapen jaws—began to emerge from Minnesota wetlands, alarm bells went off. What caused such deformities? Pollution? Ultraviolet rays? Biological agents? And could the mysterious cause also pose a threat to humans?

Judy Helgen writes with passionate concern about vulnerable frogs and wetlands as she navigates through a maze of inquisitive media and a reluctant government agency. She reports on the complexity of a growing catastrophe for frogs and broadens the issue as she researches and meets with scientists from around the world. She affirms the importance of examining aquatic life to understand pollution and the need to rescue our remaining wetlands. She also shares the fears expressed by the teachers, students, and other citizens who found these creatures, sensed a problem, and looked to her for answers. Ultimately, this is a story about the biological beauty of wetlands and our need to pay attention to the environment around us.
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cover of Pipeline Populism: Grassroots Environmentalism in the Twenty-First Century

Pipeline Populism

Grassroots Environmentalism in the Twenty-First Century

Kai Bosworth

University of Minnesota Press, 2022

How contemporary environmental struggles and resistance to pipeline development became populist struggles
 

Stunning Indigenous resistance to the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines has made global headlines in recent years. Less remarked on are the crucial populist movements that have also played a vital role in pipeline resistance. Kai Bosworth explores the influence of populism on environmentalist politics, which sought to bring together Indigenous water protectors and environmental activists along with farmers and ranchers in opposition to pipeline construction.

Here Bosworth argues that populism is shaped by the “affective infrastructures” emerging from shifts in regional economies, democratic public-review processes, and scientific controversies. With this lens, he investigates how these movements wax and wane, moving toward or away from other forms of environmental and political ideologies in the Upper Midwest. This lens also lets Bosworth place populist social movements in the critical geographical contexts of racial inequality, nationalist sentiments, ongoing settler colonialism, and global empire—crucial topics when grappling with the tensions embedded in our era’s immense environmental struggles.

Pipeline Populism reveals the complex role populism has played in shifting interpretations of environmental movements, democratic ideals, scientific expertise, and international geopolitics. Its rich data about these grassroots resistance struggles include intimate portraits of the emotional spaces where opposition is first formed. Probing the very limits of populism, Pipeline Populism presents essential work for an era defined by a wave of people-powered movements around the world.

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cover of Plane Truth: Aviation's Real Impact on People and the Environment

Plane Truth

Aviation's Real Impact on People and the Environment

Rose Bridger

Pluto Press, 2013

As aviation charges ahead to become one of the world's fastest growing industries, with passenger numbers and cargo volumes projected to double in the next 20 years, Plane Truth sounds a highly informed note of scepticism.

Rose Bridger provides a comprehensive account of aviation's impact, including how new airports are gobbling up farmland and wildlife habitats and inflicting noise and air pollution on communities. She reveals the extraordinary level of subsidy for the industry, from government expenditure on infrastructure to tax breaks, which helps to support the industry in the face of rising oil prices and the global economic downturn.

Plane Truth demolishes industry claims that fuel-efficient aircraft and alternative fuels can enable growth without increasing climate change and reveals the symbiotic relationship between aviation and the wider socio-economic problems facing humanity.

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cover of Political Economy of Environmental Protection: Analysis and Evidence

Political Economy of Environmental Protection

Analysis and Evidence

Roger D. Congleton, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 1996

Underlying all the contributions to this volume is the understanding that both political and economic considerations affect environmental outcomes. Political decisions largely determine the feasible uses of natural resources by defining and enforcing fundamental property rights and entitlements over matters with environmental consequences. By determining the rules of the game, political decisions determine the extent to which humanity is empowered to transform the world, the processes used, and the waste products remaining. Environmental policies and thereby environmental outcomes emerge from a complex political process that accommodates a variety of conflicting interests. The essays in this volume examine the links between politics and economic interdependencies, using the modern tools of economics and public choice. Each essay develops a balanced and generally positive analysis of a particular environmental policy area ranging from international treaties on global warming to EPA regulations regarding pesticide usage. Contributors use a variety of mathematical and statistical methods to examine policy formation in such policy areas as global warming, wildlife management, undersea oil rights, and the location of NIMBYs. The volume will be of interest to those who study environmental policy from the perspectives of economics, political science, public policy, and environmental studies.
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cover of Postcolonial Developments: Agriculture in the Making of Modern India

Postcolonial Developments

Agriculture in the Making of Modern India

Akhil Gupta

Duke University Press, 1998

This definitive study brings together recent critiques of development and work in postcolonial studies to explore what the postcolonial condition has meant to rural people in the Third World. Focusing on local-level agricultural practices in India since the “green revolution” of the 1960s, Akhil Gupta challenges the dichotomy of “developed” and “underdeveloped,” as well as the notion of a monolithic postcolonial condition. In so doing, he advances discussions of modernity in the Third World and offers a new model for future ethnographic scholarship.
Based on fieldwork done in the village of Alipur in rural north India from the early 1980s through the 1990s, Postcolonial Developments examines development itself as a post–World War II sociopolitical ideological formation, critiques related policies, and explores the various uses of the concept of the “indigenous” in several discursive contexts. Gupta begins with an analysis of the connections and conflicts between the world food economy, transnational capital, and technological innovations in wheat production. He then examines narratives of village politics in Alipur to show how certain discourses influenced governmental policies on the green revolution. Drawing links between village life, national trends, and global forces, Gupta concludes with a discussion of the implications of environmentalism as exemplified by the Rio Earth Summit and an examination of how global environmental treaties may detrimentally affect the lives of subaltern peoples.
With a series of subtle observations on rural politics, nationalism, gender, modernization, and difference, this innovative study capitalizes on many different disciplines: anthropology, sociology, comparative politics, cultural geography, ecology, political science, agricultural economics, and history.
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cover of Power Struggles: Hydro Development and First Nations in Manitoba and Quebec

Power Struggles

Hydro Development and First Nations in Manitoba and Quebec

Thibault Martin

University of Manitoba Press, 2008

Power Struggles: Hydro Development and First Nations in Manitoba and Quebec examines the evolution of new agreements between First Nations and Inuit and the hydro corporations in Quebec and Manitoba, including the Wuskwatim Dam Project, Paix des Braves, and the Great Whale Project. In the 1970s, both provinces signed so-called “modern treaties” with First Nations for the development of large hydro projects in Aboriginal territories. In recent times, however, the two provinces have diverged in their implementation, and public opinion of these agreements has ranged from celebratory to outrage.Power Struggles brings together perspectives on these issues from both scholars and activists. In debating the relative merits and limits of these agreements, they raise a crucial question: Is Canada on the eve of a new relationship with First Nations, or do the same colonial attitudes that have long characterized Canadian-Aboriginal relations still prevail?
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cover of Protecting New Jersey's Environment: From Cancer Alley to the New Garden State

Protecting New Jersey's Environment

From Cancer Alley to the New Garden State

Belton, Thomas

Rutgers University Press, 2011

Contaminants in fish. Ocean dumping. Biological diversity/integrity and endangered species. Pinelands and forest preservation. Wetlands protection. Watersheds and headwaters. In Protecting New Jersey's Environment these concerns translate into real human interest stories about people and their surroundings not only in the state-a critical site for the growth of environmentalism-but all around the country as well.

And you can add even more to the list-ozone depletion, nuclear power, toxic waste, sprawl, racial inequity, brownfields remediation versus environmental justice concerns. Through a series of gripping accounts organized by geographic area, Thomas Belton considers key environmental issues in New Jersey and champions the ways common citizens have sought justice when faced with unseen health threats. Often, as people search for remedies in their neighborhoods, the challenges they face result in what Belton calls bare-knuckles environmental protection, replete with back-room political deals, infighting, criminals, and hapless victims.

With people as its focus, Protecting New Jersey's Environment explores the science underpinning environmental issues and the public policy infighting that goes undocumented behind the scenes and beneath the controversies. Belton demonstrates the ways that scientists, regulators, lobbyists, and politicians interact and offers the public a go-to guide on how to seek environmental protection in practical ways.
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cover of Public Lands, Public Debates: A Century of Controversy

Public Lands, Public Debates

A Century of Controversy

Char Miller, editor

Oregon State University Press, 2012

The subject of historic struggle and contemporary dispute, public lands in the United States are treasured spaces. In Public Lands, Public Debates, environmental historian Char Miller explores the history of conservation thinking and the development of a government agency with stewardship at its mission.
 
Owned in common, our national forests, monuments, parks, and preserves are funded through federal tax receipts, making these public lands national in scope and significance. Their controversial histories demonstrate their vulnerability to shifting tides of public opinion, alterations in fiscal support, and overlapping authorities for their management—including federal, state, and local mandates, as well as critical tribal prerogatives and military claims.
 
Miller takes the Forest Service as a gauge of the broader debates in which Americans have engaged since the late nineteenth century. In nineteen essays,he examines critical moments of public and private negotiation to help explain the particular, and occasionally peculiar, tensions that have shaped the administration of public lands in the United States.
 
 “Watching democracy at work can be bewildering, even frustrating, but the only way individuals and organizations can sift through the often messy business of public deliberation is to deliberate...”

—Char Miller, from the introduction

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