| December 2005
Climate Change | Environmental
Policy |
D1 - A New Clean Air Strategy
Mazurek, Jan
Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) Policy Report, December
5, 2005. 15p
Despite the sideline role of the U.S. on global climate change
negotiations, there seems to be growing bipartisan support for
action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Momentum seems to be
building within the U.S. for action to bring national greenhouse
gas emissions under control. What is needed now is a legislative
vehicle that can attract enough support from both parties to break
the partisan gridlock that has so far stymied progress against
climate change. Jan Mazurek is director of PPI's Energy and
Environment. Fulltext
D2 - Global Climate Change Policy Beyond 2012
McKibbin, Warwick J.
The Brookings Institution, November 23, 2005, online.
It is becoming evident that most participating countries in the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are unlikely to meet
their Kyoto targets during the first commitment period of 2008-2012.
Global emissions continue to rise. The current situation facing
the participants exposes the basic flaw in the approach followed
so far in dealing with climate change policy: using short term
targets and timetables to focus policy. Politically, a target
sounds good because it signals that countries mean business. It
can also be negotiated and monitored for compliance. The problem
is that the costs of the targets chosen depend on an unknown future."
Warwick J. McKibbin, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
Program. Fulltext
D3 - International Climate Efforts Beyond 2012 - Report
of the Climate Dialogue at Pocantico
Pew Center on Global Climate Change, released November 15,
2005, 36p.
This report outlines the conclusions of the Climate Dialogue at
Pocantico where a group of 25 senior policymakers and stakeholders
from government, business, and civil society from 15 countries
were "brought together by the Pew Center for a series of
discussions exploring options for advancing the international
climate effort post-2012. ... In their report, dialogue participants
call for a more flexible international framework allowing countries
to take on different types of climate commitments. As a step toward
that, the report urges the convening of a high-level political
dialogue among major economies to begin scoping out post-2012
strategies." This report has been published only two weeks
before the start of climate negotiations in Montreal where governments
will consider launching a new process to consider next steps in
the international climate effort.Fulltext
D4 - U.S.-International Climate Change Approach: A Clean
Technology Solution
Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United
States Senate, November 14, 2005. various pagings
In his introductory statement to this hearing on the issue of
global climate change, Senator Joseph R. Biden maintains that
"the dislocations caused by climate change will shift growing
seasons, water resources, habitats, and other fundamental building
blocks of economic, social, and political arrangements around
the world. With those shifts will come political conflict, migrating
populations, the spread of disease - threats to international
stability. ... The Kyoto Protocol that now guides international
climate change efforts has major flaws. ... We must Begin the
debate on a post-Kyoto regime to guide international efforts."
Senator Biden also refers to the U.S. leadership role in confronting
the issue of global warming. Paula J. Dobriansky, Under Secretary
for Democracy and Global Affairs, Department of State, David Garman,
Under Secretary for Energy, Science and Environment, Department
of Energy, James L. Connaughton, Chairman, White House Council
on Environmental Quality, and Eileen Claussen, President, Pew
Center on Global Climate Change served as witnesses in this hearing.
Fulltext
D5 - Climate Change Policy in the U.S. - Answers from
the Subnational Level?
Knigge, Markus
Johns Hopkins University, American Institute for Contemporary
German Studies, AICGS Advisor, November 17, 2005
"Knigge ... writes in his essay ... about how environmental
activities at the state, regional, and local levels indicate considerable
potential within the American political framework to develop policies
that respond to the challenge of climate change. Knigge argues
that the federal government should adapt some policies from the
subnational level in its attempts at finding a solution to the
climate change issue." Markus Knigge is Senior Fellow
with Ecologic and was a DAAD/AICGS Fellow at AICGS in September-October
2005. Fulltext
D6 - Lugar-Biden Climate Change Resolution
Senate Resolution 312, November 15, 2005.
" U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar
today joined with Committee Ranking Member Senator Joe Biden (D-DE)
to introduce the Lugar-Biden Climate Change Resolution, which
calls for U.S. participation in international climate change agreements.
Lugar and Biden introduced the resolution as they endorsed a major
new report by the Pew Center on Climate Change calling for new
and more flexible approaches to address climate change."
Fulltext
D7 - More Than Just Talk: Connecting Science and Decisionmaking
Jacobs, Katherine; Gregg Garfin and Melanie Lenart
Environment, November 05, v47, #9, pp8-21
The movement toward integrating science into decision-making processes
has its origins in part in environmental regulations initiated
in the 1970s that encouraged participation from the public and
other agencies on proposed federal projects. Today, the U.S. Congress
requires accountability. Funding agencies, including the National
Science Foundation (NSF), require the identification of specific
stakeholders who will benefit from the knowledge gained by research
proposed for funding... Ensuring that science is more relevant
to society is particularly important to those working toward environmental
sustainability. Katharine Jacobs, associate professor in the
Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science and the deputy
director of the Center for Sustainability of semi-Arid Region
Hydrology and Riparian Areas (SAHRA) at the University of Arizona.
Gregg Garfin, program manager for the Climate Assessment for the
Southwest (CLIMAS) project at the University of Arizona's Institute
for the Study of Planet Earth. Melanie Lenart, research associate
at CLIMAS. Fulltext
D8 - Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support Sustainable
Development?
Leiserowitz, Anthony A, Kates, Robert W., Parris, Thomas M.
Environment, November 2005, v47, #9, pp22-37
"Available survey data indicate that the global public generally
supports the main tenets of sustainable development. But do these
attitudes translate into behavior, and why or why not? What needs
to be done to further a shift in behavior. This article reviews
what is currently known about global attitudes and behavior that
will either support or discourage a global sustainability transition."
Anthony A. Leiserowitz is a research scientist at Decision
Research and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
the University of Oregon, Eugene. Robert W. Kates is an independent
scholar based in Trenton, Maine, and a professor emeritus at Brown
University, Thomas M. Parris, director and research scientist
at the New England office of ISCIENCES. Fulltext
D9 - The Environment: Death and Rebirth
The American Prospect, October 2005, v16, #10, ppA1-A31
This special report explores environmentalism and progressive
politics.
- Global Denial
Gelbspan, Ross
Gelbspan asks whether Hurricane Katrina will cause Americans to
embrace fundamental change in how they consume energy and understand
politics?
- The Afterlife of Environmentalism
Meyer, John M.
Meyer explores whether progressives can tie environmentalism to
the everyday life of Americans.
- We're All Environmentalists Now
Schmitt, Mark
Schmitt returns to the widely discussed essay "The Death
of Environmentalism" published in October 2004 by Michael
Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. A reprint of this essay is available
in full text.
- Changing the Climate
McKibben, Bill
McKibben explains "why a new approach to global warming would
make for a better politics -- and planet."
- Laboratories of Progress
Marzilli, Jim
Marzilli thinks "It's time to look past the blockage in Washington
and fight for good energy policy at home."
- Shooting the Moon
Little, Griscom Amanda
Little writes "The Apollo Alliance's grand vision for energy
independence is a distant legislative goal, but it can help transform
politics right now."
- The End of the Population Movement
Werbach, Adam
Werbach notes "The challenge isn't population control. It's
sustainable development, built upon the emancipation of women
and economic opportunity."
- A New Environmentalism
Pope, Carl
Pope explores whether a new green ethic could provide common cause
in the deeply divided nation?
- A Breath of Fresh Air
Lomax, Geoffrey, English, Paul, Roberts, Eric
The authors outline "how environmentalists, health experts,
and poverty advocates are forging new coalitions to tackle an
urban asthma epidemic."
- An Emergent Progressive Majority
Totten, Gloria
Totten discusses the emergence of a progressive majority.
- New Century, New Challenges
Schakowski, Jan
Schakowski highlights the organizing challenges for 21st-century
progressivism.
- Death Warmed Over
Shellenberger, Michael; Nordhaus, Ted
The authors imagine possibilities to deal with environmental issues.
Fulltext
D10 - State of the National Landscape Conservation System.
A First Assessment
VanAsselt, Wendy and Christian Layke
The Wilderness Society and the World Resources Institute,
October 2005, 28p.
"Five years ago, the United States Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) began to manage 26 million acres of the National Landscape
Conservation System. To encourage BLM to measure and track progress
towards its conservation mandate for these areas, WRI [World Resources
Institute] and the Wilderness Society developed 35 performance
indicators." This is the first assessment based on those
indicators, released with the hope that BLM will formally adopt
indicators of their own. Wendy VanAsselt is affiliated with
the Wilderness Society and Christian Layke is affiliated with
the World Resources Institute. Fulltext
D11- Liquid Assets: How Demographic Changes and Water
Management Policies Affect Freshwater Resources
Boberg, Jill
The RAND Corporation. Web-posted October 2005, 154p.
"Most writings linking demographic trends to water availability
often look only at population-growth effects, treating water supplies
as static and population as increasing, inexorably leading to
a water-availability crisis. This report's more holistic view
of the interaction between demographics and water resources considers
more demographic and local water-availability variables. It focuses
on conditions in developing countries, where these factors intersect
with the fewest socioeconomic resources to mediate." Fulltext
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