1. Full citation. Vogel, David. The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States. Princeton [N.J.: Princeton UP], 2012. Print.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? David Vogel is professor at the Haas School of Business and in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.
3. What are the topics of the text?
The text describes and explains Europe's and the US's policy decisions toward the health and environmental risks of mobile (vehicular) source pollutants, ozone-depleting chemicals, and global climate change.
4. What is the main argument of the text?
Beginning in the 1970's, the US had earlier and more stringent emission controls than any European country, and was the first to identify the risks of ozone-depleting chemicals. However, in the case of global climate change, it was the EU that adopted more stringent and comprehensive risk regulations, especially around 1990.
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
In the case of lead emissions from vehicles, American policy makers used the precautionary language of the Clean Air Act to regard scientific evidence of the health risks of airborne lead as sufficiently conclusive to support tighter restrictions while in Europe they demanded a higher level of certainty than their American counterparts. Likewise, with ozone-depleting chemicals, the US issued regulations before there was conclusive evidence that the ozone layer was in fact thinning.
With regards to climate change, the American fossil fuel industry lobbied Congress aggressively and helped contribute to a partisan divide where one side claimed that restricting emissions would really hurt the economy.
More than a dozen conservative think tanks played a critical role in undermining what had formally been a broad scientific and public consensus.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
American public policies toward the risks of global climate change have been significantly affected by partisan differences, which increased substantially during the 1990's in this and other policy areas. Republican policy makers in Washington have generally opposed federal controls on GHG emissions and Republican legislators have been less likely to regard the scientific evidence for the human causes of global climate change as credible. (p 104)
One important reason was that progressive tightening of American regulations did not require any additional legislation. Because they could be issued administratively, they were not affected by the increased partisan polarization and Republican control of Congress after 1994. (p 118)
The bipartisan Senate resolution severely undercut the ability of American negotiators to reach an international agreement that would satisfy both domestic constituencies and the EU. Caught between the strong opposition of the US Senate and much of the American business community, as well as the demands of European and American environmentalists for binding targets and timetables, "the administration's hands were tied." (p 133)
7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
What happened between 1980 and now that allowed the public's interest in environmental welfare and public health decline?
How have think tanks fought against environmental risk and precaution in the past? Why were they successful/unsuccessful?
How does partisan division affect public health? Are there any examples where there were severe consequences?
8. What three points, details or references from the text did you follow up on to advance your perspective on environmental risk and precaution? (Provide citations, with a brief explanation of what you learned. One of these should be fully annotated, as your second required reading for each week.)
Gina Chron and Stephen Power "Cleaning up Diesel's Image," Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2006. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116476517645435205.html>
-> New diesel car designs are meeting the stricter emission standards, which is also opening up the market for diesel car companies (since states have different regulations and meeting the strictest opens up the most amount of states a car can sell in). However, persuading American consumers to buy diesel cars and light trucks will remain a challenge because of diesel's old image, and because the hardware that makes some of these new models clean requires more attention than many American drivers are likely to give.
Krugman, Paul. "Who Cooked the Planet?", New York Times, July 25, 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=0>
-> We didn’t fail to act because of legitimate doubts about the science, scientific misbehavior, or because we had reasonable concerns about the economic impact of climate legislation, but greed and cowardice. The economy as a whole would not be significantly affected if there was a price on carbon, just certain industries (and cowardice because of the senators who deserted their posts to support disinformation in exchange for financial rewards).
Vogel, David. The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States. Princeton [N.J.: Princeton UP], 2012. Print.
2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials?
David Vogel is professor at the Haas School of Business and in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility.
3. What are the topics of the text?
The text describes and explains Europe's and the US's policy decisions toward the health and environmental risks of mobile (vehicular) source pollutants, ozone-depleting chemicals, and global climate change.
4. What is the main argument of the text?
Beginning in the 1970's, the US had earlier and more stringent emission controls than any European country, and was the first to identify the risks of ozone-depleting chemicals. However, in the case of global climate change, it was the EU that adopted more stringent and comprehensive risk regulations, especially around 1990.
5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
8. What three points, details or references from the text did you follow up on to advance your perspective on environmental risk and precaution? (Provide citations, with a brief explanation of what you learned. One of these should be fully annotated, as your second required reading for each week.)
-> The European Parliament’s environment committee voted to delay implementation of Euro-5 standards 3 more years, even though a new car that meets America's stricter standards (of the time) was being released that week.
-> New diesel car designs are meeting the stricter emission standards, which is also opening up the market for diesel car companies (since states have different regulations and meeting the strictest opens up the most amount of states a car can sell in). However, persuading American consumers to buy diesel cars and light trucks will remain a challenge because of diesel's old image, and because the hardware that makes some of these new models clean requires more attention than many American drivers are likely to give.
-> We didn’t fail to act because of legitimate doubts about the science, scientific misbehavior, or because we had reasonable concerns about the economic impact of climate legislation, but greed and cowardice. The economy as a whole would not be significantly affected if there was a price on carbon, just certain industries (and cowardice because of the senators who deserted their posts to support disinformation in exchange for financial rewards).