Whither the research agenda for environmental security?

photo credit: Laurina

In preparing my lectures for this week (in the course POLI 375 Global Environmental Politics), I found myself at a loss. While I am well immersed in the academic literature, reading every issue of the associated journals in the discipline (Global Environmental Politics and International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics), I couldn’t find one single short piece that described to me (and obviously to my students) the state of the research agenda in environmental security.

The work of Simon Dalby, Geoff and Dave Dabelko, Thomas Homer-Dixon and a number of other scholars is focused on environmental security. And while the definitional issue seems to have been left behind in the conversation, I still find that scholars have difficulties in determining what exactly encompasses environmental security.

Recent work by Joshua Busby has focused on demonstrating the linkages between climate change and international security. This link is particularly visible because of the obvious nexus between vulnerability to climate change in nations and bad governance/past conflict. The above mentioned negative conditions have made these countries even more vulnerable. Responding to disasters thus becomes a challenge.

In my primary research field (water), the concept of water security has been at the forefront of academic discussions, but I ponder whether the field of environmental security can afford to continue to focus on “security in resource X or Y” rather than examining the inextricable linkages between environmental degradation and international security/foreign policy.

So I ponder, where is the debate going in the field of global environmental security? Is it going to continue in the two sub-fields (interconnected) of environmental refugees and climate-security? I wrote this blog entry to help set the stage for an online conversation between me, my students in the course, and potentially other research colleagues in the field. Comments, as always, appreciated.

Posted in climate change, climate policy, teaching.

32 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 31, 2010

The challenge of thinking comparatively in cross-national public policy analysis

photo credit: Digital Sextant

Teaching public policy has always been a delight for me. Exploring the challenges of creating and implementing policies that are effective, efficient and equitable along with my students has been one of the highlights of my academic career. Previously, I taught POLI 350A Public Policy, with a focus on Canadian public policy (urban, social, health and environmental). This year, I am teaching POLI 352A The Comparative Politics of Public Policy. I was thrilled to be offered to teach comparative public policy, given that my research is focussed primarily in understanding cross-national environmental policy puzzles.

I have spent the better part of the past decade exploring the cross-regional dynamics of industrial restructuring in Mexican cities. My research has examined patterns of water governance across 5 different states in a Mexican watershed. Current projects include an investigation of how environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in Canada, the United States and Mexico, use the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC)’s Citizen Submission on Enforcement Matters Mechanism (CSEM) to pressure national governments to remedy failures to comply with their domestic environmental regulations.

photo credit: Carlos Sánchez Pimienta

Throughout this semester, I’ve found teaching this course particularly challenging. Given that the course has no prerequisites, students can take this class without any previous coursework in public policy. While not unsurmountable, the challenge I faced was to ingrain the comparative method in my students’ thinking process. Thinking about how other nations design and implement policy and various factors influencing policy process and outcomes becomes challenging.

When one is required to detach oneself from his/her own national and cultural biases, and undertake a cross-national, or cross-regional policy comparison, recognizing those biases and going beyond our accumulated knowledge about a particular country’s policy style becomes part and parcel of the challenges in undertaking the analysis. I noticed this particular challenge in an article I recently assigned to my undergraduate students by Jacob Hacker:

Hacker, Jacob (2004) “Dismantling the Health Care State? Political Institutions, Public Policies and the Comparative Politics of Health Reform” British Journal of Political Science (2004), 34:4:693-724

In this article, Hacker undertakes a challenging cross-national comparison of public health reform in affluent democracies (Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States), focusing primarily on the politics of reform, and attempting to explain cross-national variations in legislative and policy outcomes. Hacker’s article offered my students a really good example of comparative analysis of health policy across five different nations.

When I asked my students to think critically about Hacker’s analysis, I requested that they indicate any shortcomings that they may have perceived in Hacker’s methodological approach, his theoretical framework and his case selection. For me, the main goal of this exercise was to test to what extent I had been successful in inculcating my students with an evidence-based, theoretically-grounded, comparative policy analytical framework.

I find comparative public policy analysis incredibly exciting, rewarding and challenging at the same time. Exploring causes of cross-national policy outcomes’ variations and offering empirically-grounded explanations for these is a highly exciting process. Throughout the semester, I did a lot of in-class analysis and application of various analytical frameworks, including the Bardach 8 step model.

Moreover, in teaching this course (The Comparative Politics of Public Policy), I have perceived that my students’ main challenge has been to think comparatively from the start. I wonder why this is the case, and I prepared this blog entry with two goals in mind: First, to ask my colleagues who have experience teaching comparative public policy, what their experience has been and what the main challenges have been in teaching this course. Second, to ask my own students to provide in here (on this blog) a written response to the main challenges they have faced throughout the course, and to test whether my perception is accurate.

Posted in comparative public policy.

Tagged with teaching.

14 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 28, 2010

British Columbia Water Modernization Act Workshops

photo credit: smaedli

I’m delighted to see that the government of British Columbia is using social media to encourage public participation. The year 2009 saw a number of politicians begin exploring the use of social networking sites to reach to their constituents. While there is still ample room for improvement, it is a great move on the part of governments to start implementing these public participation tools.

Thanks to David Hume and Christine Wood (both with the BC government), I learned about the workshops that will take place throughout April 2010 in the province of British Columbia to gather input on the BC Water Act. The Vancouver workshop is on April 21st, and I’ll do my best to attend.

The Ministry of Environment is hosting Water Act Modernization multi-sector workshops in March and April 2010 in the following communities:

• Nanaimo – March 5
• Prince George March 8
• Kamloops – March 11
• Kelowna – March 12
• Abbotsford – March 29 • Smithers – April 13
• Nelson – April 16
• Fort St. John – April 20
• Vancouver – April 21

These workshops are designed to share information, discuss principles for the Water Act and explore proposals for change. The main focus of the workshops is to explore options and solutions for change proposed in a public discussion paper, to be released in February.

Posted in BC Water Act, public participation, water policy.

1 comment

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 27, 2010

Ann Markusen on “Researching and making the case for creative/cultural policy”

I can’t liveblog the full seminar, but I’ll type a few notes here on CoverItLive as I can.

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=e54d7647ab" >Ann Markusen</a>

Posted in cluster theory, comparative public policy.

1 comment

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 10, 2009

Independent Power Producers Conference (#IPPBC09) livetweets

I am speaking on a panel on social media at the Independent Power Producers Conference of British Columbia in Vancouver (held at the Hyatt Regency) and we are tweeting during the event. The hashtag is #ippbc09. I am using ScribbleLive to capture the livetweetage.

Posted in bridging media and academia.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 2, 2009

A step-by-step policy analysis using Bardach’s Eight Step Model

photo credit: Latvian Foreign Ministry

Professor Eugene Bardach is, in my opinion, one of the most practical policy analysts out there. An emeritus professor at University of California Berkeley, Professor Bardach wrote a practical, widely cited, the Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving: A Practical Guide to Policy Analysis. I have used his text and many of his articles not only in my research but also in my teaching (POLI 350A Public Policy).

As I prepare to teach The Comparative Politics of Public Policy (e.g. examining cross-national variations in national public policies, or at the regional level, cross-regional changes), I thought it would be a great exercise for me, for my students and for my readers to conduct a full policy analysis (national or regional level, I don’t expect to do cross-national comparisons) using Bardach’s method.

I plan to write separate blog posts for each one of the steps of Bardach’s model to help my readers (and my students) understand how policy analysis is conducted, in real life. I have been thinking for a long time as to which policies I would like to analyze. I know that the Burrard bike trial could be one, where there’s at least *some* data. I could look at the ban on water bottles at the municipal level.

So, have your say on here. Suggest policy decisions that you would like me to examine using Bardach’s model. I’ll consider all options, primarily based on the amount of information we have available. I’ll decide by early next week (the first week of November, 2009). Drop a comment on this post with your suggestions. It can be a Vancouver, Lower Mainland or Canadian issue, or an international one.

Posted in environmental policy, policy analysis, teaching.

4 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 30, 2009

Message at Midway (Bill Weaver) #ggrc09

I asked Bill Weaver whether he’d like me to liveblog his talk, and I mentioned that I’d be liveblogging but also adding my own commentary to his speech, so here are my notes and some semi-verbatim transcriptions of Bill’s speech.

Message at Midway

(10/21/2009)

8:43	Bill Weaver (Media That Matters)

8:44	Bill has been in the media business for almost 40 years, mostly documentaries, etc. One of his big passions is Media That Matters. Happens at Hollyhock. Kind of off the grid, away from the cocktail parties.

8:44	The goal is to have deeper conversations about what we’re doing in the world – that’s really necessary. it’s a lot of fun and what we find is that it’s a great foundation for meaningful projects and collaborations. Today Bill is going to talk about one.

8:45	Chris Jordan – internationally renowned photographer and TIFF presenter. He presents great photo collages. Chris’ work is almost perfect media, in the words of Bill.

8:46	Bill asks – how the heck do we find the motivation to find solutions to enviro problems given that we have so much work. Chris Jordan invited Bill and two others to join at Midway.

8:48

Midway is mainly known as a bird sanctuary (albatross). Chris went there to take photos, but in a different state (dead). 5 tonnes of plastic get into the stomach of albatrosses (sp?) per year. They search for food, find the plastic floating on the ocean, and eventually they become so full of plastic that there is no other nutrition. At least 40% of the chicks have fatalities due to death by plastic.

Besides documenting this tragedy, they spent a lot of time on how media could be used to give out this message.

8:50	Chris Jordan – makes photographs of mass consumption – unveil social issues that are invisible at the first glance.

8:52	— We are watching one of Chris Jordan’s small documentaries – where he speaks about how he craves for change, and how he witnesses this craving for change.

8:55	Bill asks – what is our media diet? What toxic messages are we being fed? It keeps rolling in his mind – what new possibilities can media and journalism offer in these times?

8:55	Bill believes that media is the magic of today. art is one of the most refined forms of this magic (agreeing with Chris) – if we want to build resilience in our cities and ourselves we should support the arts! The arts incubate new ways to shape our world.

8:57	We have to make sacrifices so we can survive. As we go into this day, let’s think about the albatross and its sacrifice and let’s see if we can build a new story. Rauls comment – very empowering presentation by Bill Weaver.

8:57

Posted in bridging media and academia.

2 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 21, 2009

Day 2 of Gaining Ground: Resilient Cities #ggrc09 [live-tweets]

I have been attending the 2009 Gaining Ground conference, with the theme “Resilient Cities”. Day 1 (October 21st) had speakers like Paul Hawken (notable author on business and sustainability) and Sarah Severn (Nike). Unfortunately, there was no direct way to capture the live notes that attendees were submitting on the microblogging platform Twitter. Thus, I am taking it upon myself to creating a live-tweet iFrame on here (using the liveblogging platform ScribbleLive).

Posted in bridging media and academia.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 21, 2009

Neo-institutionalism at the forefront of the Nobel 2009 Prizes with Elinor Ostrom’s win

Dr. Elinor Ostrom is one of the most cited authors in the field of neo-institutionalism and considered one of the most prominent authors who have studied the governance of the commons (common pool resources, CPR). My research has been strongly influenced by Dr. Ostrom’s work. Using neo-institutional rational choice theory, Dr. Ostrom has demonstrated that self-organizing communities can, indeed, manage common pool resources in a sustainable fashion and does not necessarily need to be regulated via a central governing mechanism.

In winning the Nobel Prize 2009 in Economic Sciences, Dr. Ostrom’s research is finally recognized for the significant contribution it has made to our understanding of collective action, resource governance and human behavior in regards to the environment. While her work is strongly based on economics, it’s not only based in economic theory. Dr. Ostrom is an interdisciplinary scholar by nature, and her work spans political science, sociology, economics, and psychology.

Congratulations to Dr. Ostrom on her much-deserved Nobel Prize, as well as to Dr. Williamson, who shares the prize for his work in the boundaries of the firm and economics of transaction costs. Both scholars are foundational to the theory of governance.

Posted in governance.

1 comment

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 12, 2009

Regional Forum – Waste Management (Vancouver) [Metro Vancouver Future of the Region Forums]

I am attending the Metro Vancouver Regional Forum on Waste Management (in Vancouver) at the Morris Wosk Centre for Dialogue, as part of their series of forums on the Future of the Region.

Regional Forum on Waste Management (Vancouver)

(09/15/2009)

12:10

Metro Vancouver Regional Forum (Future of the Region) on Wast Management.

The meeting is launched by the Mayor of Delta, BC. She makes a series of comments on the opposing views on landfills, incinerators, etc.

“Our goal today is to share with you the work that we have completed so far and have a conversation on what this may mean to you and other citizens of the region. ”

12:12

Five panelists with expertise from public health risks assessment, air quality research. 5-10 minute presentation. Free-ranging discussion.

12:14

The forum is being videotaped.

The first priority is to reduce waste. It is the absolute overriding objective. Being aggressive in the reduction of waste, the recovery of some materials.

The Zero Waste Challenge began in 2006, looking at every possible way to reduce waste. Through 2008 worked throughout Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Regional District.

12:14

55% diversion to 70% by 2015. Working with member municipalities. Hopefully we’ll be on that.

12:15

(comments above after “forum is being videotaped” are from Marvin Hunt, Metro Vancouver)

12:18

Konrad Fichtner (AECOM Canada Ltd). – expertise on solid waste management, special emphasis on waste treatment.

Management of Municipal Solid Waste in Metro Vancouver – A Comparative Analysis of options for Managing Waste After Recycling. Summary of Study Results.

They took over after the program had been developed.

12:18

Study purpose

What do we do after recycling and diversion? With 70% diversion, 1.3 million tonnes per year remain.

12:19

Tonnes remaining for treatment and disposal: 1.26 million tonnes after 70% diversion.

Study parameters

– Follow provincial waste hierarchy
– Balanced view of proven technologies
– Well referneced research into technologies and effeects
– Assumptions made and tested with sensitivity analysis
– Based on existing data dn facilities
– Comparative analysis to assist with decision making.

12:23

Technologies

– Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) [example MBT in Edmonton]
– Waste-To-Energy (WTE) [example WTE in Lille France, Metro Vancouver WTE]
– Landfill

Study Process

– Life cycle assessment
– Financial model
– Social aspects
– Eight scenarios evaluated.

[Note – I don’t actually like the fact that the consultant said “you don’t need to want to understand this slide with the 8 scenarios” – THAT is precisely the slide that people would want to understand!]

12:23

3 key example scenarios
– Additional WTE capacity of 750,000 tonnes per year
– Stabilizze waste with MBT, then landfill
– Export waste out-of-region and landfill

All scenarios include continued use of Vancouver landfill and WTE

The LCA analysis for electricity production. Landfill gas recovery and heat from the landfill gas, etc.

12:28

Findings

– Transportation not key source of air emissions, major consumer of energy, displacing natural gas through district energy avoids GHG.

Findings social

– No issues with health effects from any scenarios
– WTE highest skilled employment
– In scenarios with increased WTE and MBT

Waste is dealt with where it is produced
Reduced transportation and energy consumption
Liability of waste not left for future generations

12:30

Roger Quan (Metro Vancouver)

Air quality in the Lower Fraser Valley airshed is generally good, and compares favourably to other North American cities.
– Management efforts have led to improved air quality over the past 15-20 years
– There can be short term episodes of degraded air quality

12:32

Apply a model – air quality models used to predict outdoor quality. In 2005 waste management contributes 0.8% of total NOx and 0.3% of total PM 2.5, 1% of SOx, 0.1% of VO C and 0.3% of ammonia.

12:35

Ozone levels for 2020 scenarios compared to 2005
1 – Large new WTE 86.14% maximum 7 hour concentration
6 – Local landfilling of MBT product – 86.19%
8 – Maximize out-of-region landfilling – 86.13%

No discernible difference between WTE, MBT and landfill scenarios.

12:39

Future waste management emissions under any scenario are comparable to present day and are very low.

Ambient air quality is not a determining factor in choosing between waste management options.
(I find this interesting)

Professor Jim Bridges
University of Surrey (professor emeritus)

Waste management: Public health considerations

The issue is risk, not hazard.

Hazard.
The intrinsic toxicological and other properties of a chemical.

Risk.
The likelihood that, under the conditions of exposure, the hazardous properties will be manifested.