Owen Temby

Trouble in Smogville The Politics of Toronto’s Air Pollution during the 1950s

By the mid-1950s the rapidly growing Toronto was arguably North America’s third-worst smog-stricken city. Its downtown waterfront area, referred to by the local media as “Smogville,” was home to a range of pollution sources, many of which were exempt from regulation by the city. At issue politically was whether the authority to regulate polluting sources would stay with Metropolitan Toronto or be handed to the Ontario government and whether the former would be able to regulate the exempt sources (in particular, trains, ships, and various types of manufacturers). By the end of the decade, Metropolitan Toronto still governed the pollution sources within its borders, but with substantially expanded authority to do so. This article provides an account of the politics of the city’s early attempt at air pollution governance, focusing on the role played by Toronto’s real estate interests in lobbying for air pollution relief.

Building-Integrated Photovoltaics: Distributed Energy Development for Urban Sustainability

Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) is emerging as a promising alternative in the suite of measures needed for the long-term transition of urban areas to sustainable and resilient places to live. Aesthetically pleasing, carbon neutral, and potentially transformative in how electricity grids operate in urban areas, BIPV has much to offer our cities. But why now, and what are the social and technological constraints on its use?

The association between adult mortality risk and family history of longevity: The moderating effects of socioeconomic status

Studies consistently show that increasing levels of socioeconomic status (SES) and having a familial history of longevity reduce the risk of mortality. But do these two variables interact, such that individuals with lower levels of SES, for example, may experience an attenuated longevity penalty by virtue of having long-lived relatives? This article examines this interaction by analysing survival past age 40 based on data from the Utah Population Database on an extinct cohort of men born from the years 1840 to 1909. Cox proportional hazards regression and logistic regression are used to test for the main and interaction mortality effects of SES and familial excess longevity (FEL), a summary measure of an individuals history of longevity among his or her relatives. This research finds that the mortality hazard rate for men in the top 15th percentile of occupational status decreases more as FEL increases than it does among men in the bottom 15th percentile. In addition, the mortality hazard rate among farmers decreases more as FEL increases than it does for non-farmers. With a strong family history of longevity as a proxy for a genetic predisposition, this research suggests that a gene-environment interaction occurs whereby the benefits of familial excess longevity are more available to those who have occupations with more autonomy and greater economic resources and/or opportunities for physical activity.

Examining the Role of Trust and Informal Communication on Mutual Learning in Government The Case of Climate Change Policy in New York

Although public agencies must mutually coordinate climate policy and other complex environmental issues, the extent and relative importance of informal networks and different dimensions of trust to the process remains underresearched. Addressing this, we conducted surveys and interviews with civil servants from numerous agencies and three levels of government working on climate change–related policy in the state of New York. We examined the effect of two network properties on mutual learning on climate change–related issues: the extent to which interagency communication takes places through formal and informal channels, and the distribution of two dimensions of trust (“fair play” and “relational comfort”) across the network. Our analysis revealed that formal communication among staff at different agencies was utilized more often than informal and that interagency relationships were more characterized by a feeling of “fair play” than by “relational comfort,” yet informal communication and Relational Comfort were the most important in facilitating interagency collaboration.

How do civil servants view the importance of collaboration and scientific knowledge for climate change adaptation

Successfully navigating the complex challenges posed by wicked environmental problems requires that inter- and intra-organisational policy networks share information, integrate knowledge and collaborate in decision-making processes. However, within government, the hierarchical and mechanistic design of bureaucratic agencies is often not well suited to this task. As a result, governments have increasingly implemented mechanisms encouraging interagency collaboration to better address complex environmental governance challenges, an example being climate change adaptation. In this article, we take an ‘inside look’ at how civil servants, working in the government agencies responsible for progressing climate change adaptation strategies, view collaboration and draw on science-based knowledge to inform decision-making. Focusing on civil servants in agencies from the states of Victoria, Australia, and New York, the USA, and the province of British Columbia, Canada, the results show variation across jurisdictions in terms of the collaborative mechanisms used. However, respondents in all three jurisdictions reported remarkably consistent views on the importance of collaboration and scientific knowledge to their role. Overall, our results suggest a gap exists between the motivation of civil servants to collaborate and draw on scientific information and their capacity/ability to do so, pointing to potential institutional and systemic barriers that require further research.

American business interests meet air pollution transport science: understanding the US response to trans-Pacific air pollution

Since the discovery of air pollution traveling from China to the US during the late 1990s, trans-Pacific air pollution (consisting of a range of non-CO2 greenhouse gases) has been an emerging global environmental issue. But how has it been addressed, how does it relate to the existing multilateral air pollution regime, and who are the interested parties? This article addresses these questions by examining the evolution of the science of trans-Pacific air pollution, discussing the way in which this science has been made policy-relevant by researchers working under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, and by illustrating how American economic interests concerned with the effects of trans-Pacific air pollution on American land values and industry have used this scientific knowledge to lobby the US government for regulatory relief. Trans-Pacific air pollution arguably causes regions of the US to violate National Ambient Air Quality Standards, resulting in unwanted federal involvement in local decision-making and tighter regulatory standards, which impedes local economic development and lowers property values. At the same time, laxer environmental standards in China result in increased pollution and lower American industrial competitiveness. The result has been that the US Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance for American Manufacturing have begun to develop policy alternatives.

Policy symbolism and air pollution in Toronto and Ontario, 1963–1967

In 1967, jurisdiction over clean air policy in Toronto and the rest of Ontarios municipalities was transferred to the provincial government. Even though the municipalities had obtained extensive authority to regulate air pollution within their own boundaries nine years earlier, the vast majority (apart from Toronto) had not developed clean air programmes. Yet air pollution was a highly salient issue that aroused considerable public attention and local activism. This paper provides an account of the provincial takeover in air pollution, focusing on two factors enabling the Ontario government to pass two statutes transferring authority from municipalities to the provincial Department of Health. First, despite resistance in Toronto, the policy change was favoured by industry, which had more influence in the provincial government than across municipalities. Second, the inherently symbolic features of clean air policy allowed the provincial government to satisfy public demand for action while not appreciably creating more stringent regulations. These findings are consistent with studies of US clean air policy displaying a similar tendency among industry to support regulatory standardization across broad political scales.

What are levels of analysis and what do they contribute to international relations theory

The objective of this article is to clarify the significance and usefulness of levels of analysis, a central IR concept, but one often used unproblematically. I argue that a level of analysis should be defined as a social structure that is examined for its effects on another social structure, or on the same social structure. Therefore, levels of analysis are also relational, meaning that one is defined, in part, in terms of its associated unit of analysis. Because this definition conceptualizes levels of analysis as methodological tools rather than ontological postulates, it is consistent with a wide range of positions on the agent-structure debate. More specifically, I show that the methodological issue of which levels of analysis a researcher employs is separate from the ontological issue of whether the theoretical lens is atomistic (reductionist) or holistic at any given level. One implication of this definition is that researchers need not view their ontological commitments as overly methodologically constraining. This article also addresses some questions raised by this conceptualization, among them the possibility of multiple social structures existing at a single level.

On Developing an Inter-Agency Trust Scale for Assessing Governance Networks in the Public Sector

ABSTRACT This article presents the development and validation of a psychometric scale for assessing public sector inter-agency trust. The instrument is grounded in contemporary trust theory and methodologically adapted from a measure developed for private sector alliances. Tested using four discrete studies of governance networks, each addressing transboundary environmental issues such as climate change and fisheries, the scale exhibits reasonably valid psychometric properties while also enabling visualized analysis of networked trust distributions. Based on this work, we outline further research needs with a view to stimulating greater trust research in governance networks and facilitating more collaborative and innovative policy outcomes in the public sector.

Property, Technology, and Environmental Policy: The Politics of Acid Rain in Ontario, 1978–1985

Acid rain emerged as a salient political issue in Ontario during the late 1970s in the wake of multiple scientifi c studies and media reports of its damaging eff ects on emblematic tourist areas in the province. In the popular “cottage country” Muskoka and Halliburton regions near Toronto, the rapid deterioration of the area’s many lakes had alarmed local property owners and businesses, and the studies and reports pointed to the culprits—notably Ontario’s nickel-copper ore smelting and power-generation industries. Politicians learned they would sidestep the problem at their peril during the summer of 1978, when a rescinded control order on the International Nickel Company of Canada (Inco), the province’s largest emitter of acid rain precursors, unleashed a public backlash raising the prospect of a nonconfi dence motion against the government and leading to the replacement of the newly appointed environmental minister. With acid rain now on the policymaking agenda, a succession of events occurred that were signifi cant enough for several academic observers to assert that Canada had at the time entered a new era of environmental mobilization. 1 Th e case of acid rain in Ontario has been used in the public policy literature as an example of the second “wave” or “generation” of environmental