Download or read book Scientific Uncertainty and its Implications for Environmental Problem Solving written by John Lemons and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1996-10-15 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding and solving the pressing environmental problems that face us today requires application of the best scientific knowledge available. Most environmental managers currently are using books that focus on scientific methods, techniques, models and data that might be helpful. But as environmental problems become more complex, it is unclear to what extent scientific knowledge is adequate or appropriate as a basis for environmental decision-making. Because managers need to be aware that scientific results are based on probabilities rather than definitives, this book takes a case-study approach to the subject, with contributions from leading names in the field evaluating the implications of scientific uncertainty. Additionally, the contributors offer practical recommendations for how uncertainty can be factored into the environmental decision-making processes. Defines the problems and implications of scientific uncertainty for the environmental profession. Contains practical recommendations for how scientific uncertainty can be factored into environmental decision-making processes.
Download or read book Scientific Uncertainty and Environmental Problem Solving written by John Lemons and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wicked Environmental Problems written by Peter J. Balint and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Wicked" problems are large-scale, long-term policy dilemmas in which multiple and compounding risks and uncertainties combine with sharply divergent public values to generate contentious political stalemates; wicked problems in the environmental arena typically emerge from entrenched conflicts over natural resource management and over the prioritization of economic and conservation goals more generally. This new book examines past experience and future directions in the management of wicked environmental problems and describes new strategies for mitigating the conflicts inherent in these seemingly intractable situations. The book: reviews the history of the concept of wicked problems examines the principles and processes that managers have applied explores the practical limitations of various approaches Most important, the book reviews current thinking on the way forward, focusing on the implementation of "learning networks," in which public managers, technical experts, and public stakeholders collaborate in decision-making processes that are analytic, iterative, and deliberative. Case studies of forest management in the Sierra Nevada, restoration of the Florida Everglades, carbon trading in the European Union, and management of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania are used to explain concepts and demonstrate practical applications. Wicked Environmental Problems offers new approaches for managing environmental conflicts and shows how managers could apply these approaches within common, real-world statutory decision-making frameworks. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with managing environmental problems.
Download or read book Environmental Problem Solving Balancing Science and Politics Using Consensus Building Tools written by Lawrence Susskind and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2020-10-31 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Environmental Problem-Solving' presents short excerpts from carefully selected readings, expert commentaries on those readings, assignments, and the best MIT student responses to the assignments and exam questions with excellent student response. The book presents four main models of environmental policy-making: competing theories of environmental ethics; tools for environmental assessment and environmental decision-making; and techniques for public engagement and group decision-making. The book covers the material presented in the semester-long course required of all students enrolled in MIT’s Environmental Policy and Planning Specialization.
Download or read book Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Problem Solving written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1986-02-01 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how the scientific tools of ecology can be used more effectively in dealing with a variety of complex environmental problems. Part I discusses the usefulness of such ecological knowledge as population dynamics and interactions, community ecology, life histories, and the impact of various materials and energy sources on the environment. Part II contains 13 original and instructive case studies pertaining to the biological side of environmental problems, which Nature described as "carefully chosen and extremely interesting."
Download or read book Science Politics and Morality written by R. von Schomberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current environmental problems and technological risks are a challenge for a new institutional arrangement of the value spheres of Science, Politics and Morality. Distinguished authors from different European countries and America provide a cross-disciplinary perspective on the problems of political decision making under the conditions of scientific uncertainty. cases from biotechnology and the environmental sciences are discussed. The papers collected for this volume address the following themes: (i) controversies about risks and political decision making; (ii) concepts of science for policy; (iii) the use of social science in the policy making process; (iv) ethical problems with developments in science and technology; (v) public and state interests in the development and control of technology.
Download or read book Scientific Uncertainty and Its Influence on the Public Communication Process written by Virginia H. Sublet and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts from academia and government who are actively engaged in research in the area of risk communication present a compendium of cases that give information and allow the development of strategies to improve the communication of scientific information to the public. The cases span Western, Central and Eastern Europe, covering such areas as nuclear waste, heavy metal contamination, landfill siting, risk perception, global warming, international health for all, and more. The conclusions and recommendations presented here are being used to develop future activities to further explore this area of risk communication as an international study. Audience: Scientists, risk communicators, psychologists, toxicologists, health professionals, and anyone who has an interest in public communication on scientific uncertainty.
Download or read book Global Environmental Change written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global environmental change often seems to be the most carefully examined issue of our time. Yet understanding the human sideâ€"human causes of and responses to environmental changeâ€"has not yet received sustained attention. Global Environmental Change offers a strategy for combining the efforts of natural and social scientists to better understand how our actions influence global change and how global change influences us. The volume is accessible to the nonscientist and provides a wide range of examples and case studies. It explores how the attitudes and actions of individuals, governments, and organizations intertwine to leave their mark on the health of the planet. The book focuses on establishing a framework for this new field of study, identifying problems that must be overcome if we are to deepen our understanding of the human dimensions of global change, presenting conclusions and recommendations.
Download or read book Future Sustainable Ecosystems written by Nathaniel K Newlands and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Future Sustainable Ecosystems: Complexity, Risk, Uncertainty provides an interdisciplinary, integrative overview of environmental problem-solving using statistics. It shows how statistics can be used to solve diverse environmental and socio-economic problems involving food, water, energy scarcity, and climate change risks. It synthesizes interdisciplinary theory, concepts, definitions, models and findings involved in complex global sustainability problem-solving, making it an essential guide and reference. It includes real-world examples and applications making the book accessible to a broader interdisciplinary readership. Discussions include a broad, integrated perspective on sustainability, integrated risk, multi-scale changes and impacts taking place within ecosystems worldwide. State-of-the-art statistical techniques, including Bayesian hierarchical, spatio-temporal, agent-based and game-theoretic approaches are explored. The author then focuses on the real-world integration of observational and experimental data and its use within statistical models.
Download or read book Should We Risk It written by Daniel M. Kammen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How dangerous is smoking? What are the risks of nuclear power or of climate change? What are the chances of dying on an airplane? More importantly, how do we use this information once we have it? The demand for risk analysts who are able to answer such questions has grown exponentially in recent years. Yet programs to train these analysts have not kept pace. In this book, Daniel Kammen and David Hassenzahl address that problem. They draw together, organize, and seek to unify previously disparate theories and methodologies connected with risk analysis for health, environmental, and technological problems. They also provide a rich variety of case studies and worked problems, meeting the growing need for an up-to-date book suitable for teaching and individual learning. The specific problems addressed in the book include order-of-magnitude estimation, dose-response calculations, exposure assessment, extrapolations and forecasts based on experimental or natural data, modeling and the problems of complexity in models, fault-tree analysis, managing and estimating uncertainty, and social theories of risk and risk communication. The authors cover basic and intermediate statistics, as well as Monte Carlo methods, Bayesian analysis, and various techniques of uncertainty and forecast evaluation. The volume's unique approach will appeal to a wide range of people in environmental science and studies, health care, and engineering, as well as to policy makers confronted by the increasing number of decisions requiring risk and cost/benefit analysis. Should We Risk It? will become a standard text in courses involving risk and decision analysis and in courses of applied statistics with a focus on environmental and technological issues.
Download or read book Building a Foundation for Sound Environmental Decisions written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1997-09-01 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decades, environmental problems have attracted enormous attention and public concern. Many actions have been taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others to protect human health and ecosystems from particular threats. Despite some successes, many problems remain unsolved and new ones are emerging. Increasing population and related pressures, combined with a realization of the interconnectedness and complexity of environmental systems, present new challenges to policymakers and regulators. Scientific research has played, and will continue to play, an essential part in solving environmental problems. Decisions based on incorrect or incomplete understanding of environmental systems will not achieve the greatest reduction of risk at the lowest cost. This volume describes a framework for acquiring the knowledge needed both to solve current recognized problems and to be prepared for the kinds of problems likely to emerge in the future. Many case examples are included to illustrate why some environmental control strategies have succeeded where others have fallen short and how we can do better in the future.
Download or read book Uncertainty written by Kostas Kampourakis and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anti-evolutionists, climate denialists, and anti-vaxxers, among others, question some of the best-established scientific findings by referring to the uncertainties in these areas of research. Uncertainty: How It Makes Science Advance shows that uncertainty is an inherent feature of science that makes it advance by motivating further research.
Download or read book Obstacles to Environmental Progress written by Peter C. Schulze and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why, when so many people understand the severity of environmental problems, is progress so slow and sustainability such a distant goal? What gets in the way? Perhaps you have immediately thought of several barriers. In Obstacles to Environmental Progress, Peter Schulze identifies 18 practical obstacles that routinely and predictably hinder U.S. progress on existing environmental problems. The obstacles apply to problems small and large and, in most cases, regardless of whether an issue is controversial. Though the book focuses on the U.S., most of the obstacles pertain elsewhere as well. The obstacles fall into three categories: challenges to anticipating, detecting, and understanding problems; political and economic factors that interfere with responding; and obstacles to effective responses. While all the obstacles are predictable and common, they have not been systematically studied as related phenomena, perhaps because they span a wide range of academic disciplines. In practice, they often arise as surprises that are then addressed in an ad hoc manner. Might they be better understood and thus more readily anticipated and overcome or avoided? The book seeks to hasten environmental progress by forewarning and thus forearming those who are striving or will soon be striving for environmental progress, and by drawing scholarly attention to the obstacles as a set of related phenomena to systematically understand and more quickly overcome. Praise for Obstacles to Environmental Progress 'I have never come across another book that gives students such an accessible and helpful guide to the broad scope of the challenges facing an environmentally sound and sustainable future.' Al Wurth, Lehigh University 'We've long needed something like this: a gazetteer for answering the endless series of objections and overcoming the repetitive obstacles that stand between us and the environmental progress we urgently require.' Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and founder of 350.org and Third Act
Download or read book Ecological Sustainability and Integrity Concepts and Approaches written by J. Lemons and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book follows upon earlier work which culminated in the publication of two recent books, Sustainable Development: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy (John Lemons and Donald A. Brown, editors), and Perspectives on Ecological Integrity (Laura Westra and John Lemons, editors). Both of these books also were published by Kluwer Academic Publishers. In this book, we seek to explore more fully the concepts of sustainability and ecological integrity as well as the connections between them. We have divided chapters into three groups. In the first, the concept of sustainability in relation to science, law, and ethics is explored. In the second, concepts of sustainability and ecological integrity are applied to problems in specific natural resources. Finally, in the third group we examine possible approaches to public policy which might include concepts of sustainability and ecological integrity. Overall, we believe that this collection presents a wide variety of perspectives, discussions, and case studies. John Lemons Laura Westra Robert Goodland Editors ix CONTENTS PART I Sustainability in Relation to Science, Law, and Ethics Chapter 1 The Concept of Sustainability: A Critical Approach Lynton K. Caldwell 1. Problems of Definition 2 2. Behavioral Obstacles 4 3. Psychological Obstacles: Seven Deadly Sins of Unsustainability 8 4.
Download or read book The Ecosystem Approach written by David Waltner-Toews and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is sustainable development a workable solution for today's environmental problems? Is it scientifically defensible? Best known for applying ecological theory to the engineering problems of everyday life, the late scholar James J. Kay was a leader in the study of social and ecological complexity and the thermodynamics of ecosystems. Drawing from his immensely important work, as well as the research of his students and colleagues, The Ecosystem Approach is a guide to the aspects of complex systems theories relevant to social-ecological management. Advancing a methodology that is rooted in good theory and practice, this book features case studies conducted in the Arctic and Africa, in Canada and Kathmandu, and in the Peruvian Amazon, Chesapeake Bay, and Chennai, India. Applying a systems approach to concrete environmental issues, this volume is geared toward scientists, engineers, and sustainable development scholars and practitioners who are attuned to the ideas of the Resilience Alliance-an international group of scientists who take a more holistic view of ecology and environmental problem-solving. Chapters cover the origins and rebirth of the ecosystem approach in ecology; the bridging of science and values; the challenge of governance in complex systems; systemic and participatory approaches to management; and the place for cultural diversity in the quest for global sustainability.
Download or read book Knowledge Power and Participation in Environmental Policy Analysis written by Rob Hoppe and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume probes practical dilemmas and competing re- search perspectives in environmental policy analysis. Scholars working in different fields, research traditions, societies, and policy domains offer significant insights into the processes and consequences of environmental policy making. Part 1, "Coping with Boundaries," describes present-day conflict between experts and greater public participation in environmental policy. It shows that the institutionalization of increasingly complex environmental problems has led to a conflict between technocracy and democracy. Part 2, "The Transnational Challenge," examines modes of cooperation between grassroots movements, scientists, and regional authorities in the United States and Canada. These and other modes of cooperation laid the foundations for the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, increased the effectiveness of air pollution treaties, and increased climate change. Part 3, "Bio-Hazards: Policies and Paralysis," deals with environmental prob-lems closest to the everyday concerns of the public at large because they have immediate implications for food safety and other values. Part 4, "The Citizens' Perspective," focuses on citizen vis-a-vis environmental policy, noting that in order to make policies work citizens must be willing and able to participate in policy-making and cooperate in implementing environmental choices. Part 5, "Confronting Ordinary and Expert Knowledge," explores opportunities and constraints affecting public participation in evaluation of science. Part 6, "Developments in Research Programming," addresses such questions as whether scientists still have opportunities to do the research they want without being interrupted or disturbed by policy makers and other stakeholders. Part 7, "Policy Sciences' Aspirations," explores different avenues for improving environmental policy. Volume twelve in the PSRA series should inspire further investigations of the relations among knowledge, power, and participation in environmental policy. It will be of timely interest to environmentalists, policy-makers, scholars, and the general public.
Download or read book Uncertainties in Environmental Modelling and Consequences for Policy Making written by Philippe Baveye and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-05-14 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mathematical modelling has become in recent years an essential tool for the prediction of environmental change and for the development of sustainable policies. Yet, many of the uncertainties associated with modelling efforts appear poorly understood by many, especially by policy makers. This book attempts for the first time to cover the full range of issues related to model uncertainties, from the subjectivity of setting up a conceptual model of a given system, all the way to communicating the nature of model uncertainties to non-scientists and accounting for model uncertainties in policy decisions. Theoretical chapters, providing background information on specific steps in the modelling process and in the adoption of models by end-users, are complemented by illustrative case studies dealing with soils and global climate change. All the chapters are authored by recognized experts in their respective disciplines, and provide a timely and uniquely comprehensive coverage of an important field.
