Eric Lindquist

Explaining Media and Congressional Attention to Global Climate Change, 1969-2005: An Empirical Test of Agenda-Setting Theory

Agenda theories suggest that problem indicator, focusing event, and information feedback enhance issue attention. However, few studies have systematically tested this. This study, using time series data and vector autoregression (VAR), examines how climate problem indicator, high-profile international event, and climate science feedback influence media and congressional attention to global warming and climate change. The findings confirm that these attention-grabbing factors indeed generally promote issue salience, but these factors may work differently across agenda venues. Attention inertia, interagenda interaction, and partisan advantage on agenda setting are also included and analyzed in the VAR modeling. Implications of the study and recommendations for future research are discussed in conclusion.

Examining climate change mitigation and adaptation behaviours among public sector organisations in the USA

Climate change has become a more salient issue on the US policy agenda at all levels of government. Increasing empirical evidence and identification of its potential risks to human populations have increased media, public, and policy-maker interest. There is a gap, however, in our knowledge of sub-national decision-making which suggests several questions: Are community leaders deciding to take action in response to climate change action, and, if so, what is the solution focus – mitigation or adaptation? Our study addresses this gap in the literature by reporting the results of a national survey of local, regional, and state decision-makers whose organisations will be addressing community responses to the threat of climate change. We find that, in general, these agencies are not engaged in climate change policy, nor is the issue on their agendas. Among organisations considering policy responses, there is variation between types of agency and type of solution, mitigation versus adaptation.

MOVING TOWARD SUSTAINABILITY: TRANSFORMING A COMPREHENSIVE LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION PLAN

Sustainability and sustainable development have been, perhaps, the most debated yet least applied concepts in urban and regional planning in recent years. Missing in all the rhetoric on and research into sustainable development are guidelines for moving toward plans that, either incrementally or comprehensively, incorporate sustainable objectives and the steps necessary to implement them. An approach is outlined for developing measures and steps to transform a traditional community-based comprehensive land use and transportation plan into one incorporating sustainable development objectives and measures. Traditional objectives of comprehensive land use and transportation planning are identified and linked to their sustainability equivalents. Four elements are discussed: land use, transportation, environmental factors, and economic development. A four-step, dynamic process is described for implementing the model and transforming the plan objectives, its implementation, and its measures of success. A tool for strategically assessing the political climate for change is included to assist planners in identifying an acceptable scale of movement toward sustainability. In conclusion, the elements presented provide a strategy and tools for moving forward in adopting sustainability as a local objective for land use and transportation planning.

Unintended Consequences of Policy Decisions: Whatever Happened with the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act Management Systems?

The concept of “unintended consequences of policy decisions” is introduced as one potential outcome of the implementation of transportation policy. An unintended consequence is one that diverges from an authorized or directed policy action. This concept is illustrated by an assessment of the short-lived transportation management systems mandate in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. Policy implementation theory suggests four propositions as an assessment framework: intergovernmental linkages, communication between linkages, organizational capacity of the implementing agency, and interpretation of the policy message. Problems in all four elements contributed to unintended consequences of the management system mandate and its eventual reversal in 1995. Implementing transportation policies and mandates has become increasingly complex; a more informed understanding of the policy-making process, and the conditions under which unintended consequences can occur during the implementation stage, will influence better policy design and implementation efforts.

UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSPORTATION POLICY PROCESS: INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS THROUGH TWO CONCEPTUAL LENSES

An alternative to transportation policy making, the agenda-setting framework, which is more realistic than the rational-comprehensive perspective of policy making traditionally taught to and applied by engineers and planners, is presented. In general, this framework for analysis suggests that before a policy decision is made, two important processes are at work: agenda setting and the selection of alternative solutions. The process of setting the agenda focuses attention on certain issues instead of others, whereas the selection of alternatives focuses attention on certain solutions instead of others. These processes are nonlinear, dynamic, and contrary to much of what is expected from the rational-comprehensive model. These two competing perspectives are outlined, and the rise of intelligent transportation system technologies as solutions for transportation problems is used as an illustration of the agenda-setting perspective.

Use and benefits of NASA’s RECOVER for post-fire decision support

Today’s extended fire seasons and large fire footprints have prompted state and federal land-management agencies to devote increasingly large portions of their budgets to wildfire management. As fire costs continue to rise, timely and comprehensive fire information becomes increasingly critical to response and rehabilitation efforts. The NASA Rehabilitation Capability Convergence for Ecosystem Recovery (RECOVER) post-fire decision support system is a server-based application designed to rapidly provide land managers with the information needed to develop a comprehensive rehabilitation plan. This study evaluated the efficacy of RECOVER through structured interviews with land managers (n = 19) who used RECOVER and were responsible for post-fire rehabilitation efforts on over 715 000 ha of fire-affected lands. Although the benefit of better-informed decisions is difficult to quantify, the results of this study illustrate that RECOVER’s decision support capabilities provided information to land managers that either validated or altered their decisions on post-fire treatments estimated at over US

Tracking a half-century of media reporting on gray wolves

1.2 million and saved nearly 800 h of staff time by streamlining data collection as well as communication with local stakeholders and partnering agencies.

Recent Changes in Flood Preparedness of Private Households and Businesses in Germany

Natural resource and wildlife managers must balance the disparate priorities of a diversity of stakeholders. To manage these priorities, a firm understanding of topics salient to the public is needed. The media often report on issues of importance to the public; therefore, these reports may be a useful measure of public interest. However, efficient methods for distinguishing diverse topics related to a wildlife management issue reported in the media and changes in the salience of those topics have been lacking. We used latent Dirichlet allocation, a Bayesian mixture model, to quantitatively assess the salience of topics surrounding the gray wolf (Canis lupus), which was reintroduced to Idaho (U.S.A.) in 1995. We analyzed articles published from 1960 to 2015 in an Idaho newspaper. We identified 6 distinct topics associated with gray wolves: policy, hunting, biological status, implementation of management, recovery, and human-wolf conflict. The salience of topics pre- and postreintroduction of wolves (1995) and pre- and postdelisting of wolves from the U.S. Endangered Species Act (2009) differed significantly, underscoring that these events were turning points in how issues were being publicly discussed and framed. Articles written by the local reporters were more likely to report on topics regarding conflict between humans and wolves, whereas articles sourced from a national outlet reported more on topics pertaining to wolf policy and biological status. In the context of managing a contentious, far-ranging, and long-lived wildlife species, our methods can help guide the location and timing of a suite of management strategies (e.g., media relation plans and stakeholder engagement) that promote human-wildlife coexistence across different landscapes.