Mary R. English

Tools to aid environmental decision making

1. Overview.- 2. Identifying Environmental Values.- 3. Tools to Characterize the Environmental Setting.- 4. Tools for Understanding the Socioeconomic and Political Settings for Environmental Decision Making.- 5. Characterizing the Regulatory and Judicial Setting.- 6. Integration of Geographic Information.- 7. Forecasting for Environmental Decision Making.- 8. Assessment, Refinement, and Narrowing of Options.- 9. Post-Decision Assessment.- 10. Next Steps for Tools to Aid Environmental Decision Making.- Biographies of Contributing Authors.

A Framework for Understanding and Improving Environmental Decision Making

This paper presents a framework for understanding and improving public sector environmental decision making. Within the framework, four interrelated components are discussed: (1) the environmental and cultural context-understanding this context includes understanding what people consider to be environmental problems, the goals and values that they bring to environmental problems and decision processes, specialized and common knowledge about environmental problems, and the institutional settings within which problems are addressed; (2) planning and appraisal activitiesthese activities include forecasting and monitoring exercises, evaluations of past decisions, and decisions that processes ought to be launched to solve specific environmental problems; (3) decision-making modes-these include six typical ways of conducting an environmental problem-solving process, modes which, in the framework, are called emergency action, routine procedures, analysis-centred, elite corps, conflict management and collaborative learning; (4) decision actions-these include five generic steps that are undertaken, formally or intuitively, in virtually any decision-making situation: issue familiarization; criteria setting; option construction; option assessment; and reaching a decision. In the course of describing the framework, we show a decision-making process can be adapted to incorporate sustainability concerns, including fostering sustainable environmental and social systems, meeting obligations to future generations, and searching for robust and reasonable (rather than rigidly optimal) decisions. The framework also helps to illuminate intriguing questions regarding institutional responsibility, decision process complexity and paradigms for environmental decision making.

Understanding Human–Landscape Interactions in the “Anthropocene”

This article summarizes the primary outcomes of an interdisciplinary workshop in 2010, sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation, focused on developing key questions and integrative themes for advancing the science of human–landscape systems. The workshop was a response to a grand challenge identified recently by the U.S. National Research Council (2010a)—“How will Earth’s surface evolve in the “Anthropocene?”—suggesting that new theories and methodological approaches are needed to tackle increasingly complex human–landscape interactions in the new era. A new science of human–landscape systems recognizes the interdependence of hydro-geomorphological, ecological, and human processes and functions. Advances within a range of disciplines spanning the physical, biological, and social sciences are therefore needed to contribute toward interdisciplinary research that lies at the heart of the science. Four integrative research themes were identified—thresholds/tipping points, time scales and time lags, spatial scales and boundaries, and feedback loops—serving as potential focal points around which theory can be built for human–landscape systems. Implementing the integrative themes requires that the research communities: (1) establish common metrics to describe and quantify human, biological, and geomorphological systems; (2) develop new ways to integrate diverse data and methods; and (3) focus on synthesis, generalization, and meta-analyses, as individual case studies continue to accumulate. Challenges to meeting these needs center on effective communication and collaboration across diverse disciplines spanning the natural and social scientific divide. Creating venues and mechanisms for sustained focused interdisciplinary collaborations, such as synthesis centers, becomes extraordinarily important for advancing the science.

Nuclear Waste: Knowledge Waste?

A stalled nuclear waste program, and possible increase in wastes, beg for social science input into acceptable solutions. Nuclear power is re-emerging as a major part of the energy portfolios of a wide variety of nations. With over 50 reactors being built around the world today and over 100 more planned to come online in the next decade, many observers are proclaiming a “nuclear renaissance” (1). The success of a nuclear revival is dependent upon addressing a well-known set of challenges, for example, plant safety (even in the light of improved reactor designs), costs and liabilities, terrorism at plants and in transport, weapons proliferation, and the successful siting of the plants themselves (2, 3).

Next Steps for Tools to Aid Environmental Decision Making

As the prior chapters suggest, information-gathering and analytic tools can be used by a variety of participants in environmental decisions, including the heads of the decision-making organizations, their staffs, and other interested groups and individuals. As has been illuminated in this book, a variety of tools can be used to improve the ways in which information for environmental decisions is obtained, organized, and analyzed. And the use of these tools increases the likelihood that, despite sometimes large uncertainties and unknowns, wise decisions will be made.

DSM/IRP collaboratives: what have they accomplished?

Abstract The collaborative process involves utilities and nonutility parties (NUPs) in a joint effort to address issues of common concern and achieve mutually advantageous results. The outcomes of these collaborative efforts can be divided into two general categories: (1) product-related outcomes that are related to the demand-side management (DSM) plans or other products developed by the collaborative groups and (2) participant-related outcomes that are related primarily to the participants and their organizational needs. Each of these general outcome areas can be further subdivided into individual measures of collaborative success. Among the 14 cases of utility-NUP collaboration that were studied, consensus was reached more frequently on the content of DSM programs than on any of the related policy issues that were addressed. DSM budgets and energy savings projected to result from the collaborative-developed programs were substantially greater than those associated with earlier utility efforts. In addit...

Energy efficiency advocacy groups Factors affecting their influence on DSM and IRP

Abstract Under which conditions are energy efficiency advocacy efforts most effective? In this article, we assess the activities of selected US energy efficiency advocacy groups (EEAGs) in their attempts to influence investor-owned electric utilities and their regulators. Our assessment is based upon a two-year project completed in late 1993 involving 10 in-depth case studies. The case studies focused on interactive efforts between utilities and non-utility parties but examined other, related EEAG efforts as well. The article concludes with a summary of key findings resulting from the project.

Interactive efforts between utilities and non-utility parties: constraints and possibilities

During the past 5 years, a number of interactive efforts have been initiated between investor-owned utilities and non-utility parties in the U.S. Typically, these efforts focus on utility demand-side management (DSM) programs and on related regulatory policies. We examine how well these efforts are succeeding, describe conditions that promote or impede interactive efforts, and discuss what can realistically be expected from their use.

Wind Energy in Vermont: The Benefits and Limitations of Stakeholder Involvement

Wind energy … what’s not to like about it? With growing concerns about climate change and tightened regulation of conventional air pollutants, the United States is climbing on the wind energy band wagon. Wind and other renewable sources of electricity are being promoted at the federal level through production tax credits and at the state level through renewable portfolio standards. But how do utility-scale wind energy projects play at the local level? Not well. Focusing on a proposed 80-MW project in southwestern Vermont, this chapter examines both the possibilities and the limitations of stakeholder involvement in large-scale wind turbine projects.

Risk and Consent

Today’s risks are often technological risks, and consent to these risks is often sought by government agencies or industries. But what does it mean to consent to a risk? This paper begins by alluding to some of the ambiguities inherent in this question. It then proposes that even if consent is direct and voluntary (as opposed to indirect or coerced), a number of important issues remain: (1) whether the consent can be revoked; (2) what counts as informed consent; (3) whether the consent is explicit; (4) whether the consent is conflicted; and (5) what motivates the consent. After examining these issues, the paper concludes by discussing whether consent—even consent that is revocable, informed, explicit, unconflicted, and rationally motivated—always provides sufficient ethical grounds for the imposition of risk.