GoverningEnvironmentalRisks - Vogel Chapter 4 Arizzi

Full citation.
1. Vogel, D. The Politics of Precaution: Regulating Health, Safety, and Environmental Risks in Europe and the United States. Princeton Univers. Press, 2012.
What are the topics of the text?
1. This text focuses on the health and environmental risks associated with air pollution, presenting case studies on individual policy decisions associated with mobile source pollutants, ozone-depleting chemicals, and global climate change which both describe the policies and explain the reasoning behind their implementation.
What is the main argument of the text?
1. Using a historical analysis, it is clear that initially the United States enacted significantly more stringent regulation regarding mobile source pollutants while the European Union focused more on climate change, with each topic being much less of a concern in the other. The stressors behind governmental regulation in the United States versus the European Union can be tied to public perception of risk, along with the economic costs associated with a shift to regulatory standards.
Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
1. Because the United States had required catalytic converters for all new vehicles much earlier than in Europe, by 1990 American lead emissions were 99.75 percent lower than in the mid-1970s and leaded gasoline only accounted for 0.6 percent of total gasoline sales when it was finally banned. By contrast, because catalytic converters were not required for all new vehicles sold in the EU until 1992 – twelve years after the United – European lead emissions from vehicles only began to significantly decrease during the 1990s. Between 1979 and 1987, the total amount of lead emitted by vehicles in the United States declines from 123,865 tons to 3,306 tons, while in 1987, lead emissions from vehicles within the EU still totaled 23,891 tons – or more than seven times American total vehicular emissions.
2. For a variety of historical reasons, public policies in European countries, most notably their taxes on motor fuels, have played an important role in promoting the use of more fuel-efficient engines, most notably diesels. But diesels also produce more health-related pollutants…EU standards apply equally to vehicles sold in all twenty-seven member states. Thus, in this case, the EU’s commitment to maintain a single market for automobiles has constrained the ability of member states to adopt more stringent mobile sources emission standards, as California and other American states have been able to do.
3. The failure of the United States to “enact a significant climate change policy [was]…heavily influenced by the success of the conservative movement in challenging the legitimacy of global warming as a social problem.” Aided by Republican legislators, “the conservative movement successfully altered trhe nature of the global warming debate away from the question of ‘What do we need to do to address global warming?’ toward the more benign question of ‘Is global warming really a problem?’
What three quotes capture the message of the text?
1. The American Tier 2 car standards, which took full effect in 2009, “are the toughest in the world, as are the...truck standards and off-road vehicle standards that the EPA adopted.”
2. “The fear of skin cancer from the depletion of stratospheric ozone due to the use of CFCs as aerosol propellants in spray cans personalized the risks for many people…The public came to view the risks of using CFC-based aerosols as unacceptable.”
3. “there is no necessary relationship between the actual extent of “ecological vulnerability” and the public’s perception of the risks it considers both credible and unacceptable. Nor is there any evidence that significant segments of the public or opinion leaders on either side of the Atlantic were aware of their different vulnerabilities to skin cancer.”
What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
1. Was there any sort of international sharing of scientific studies between the EU and the United States? How could the EU produce studies which claimed lead was safe, while the US proved otherwise?
2. Why have more environmental regulations not followed the same process as the Clean Air Act amendments? (Legislation with the capacity to evolve based on the EPA, independent of legislation)
3. Why were American cancer rates substantially higher than that of members of the EU?
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.)
1. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007
  1. Also knows as the Clean Energy Act, this piece of legislation was designed to move the United States towards greater energy independence and security to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government. When I first began researching this, I was highly disappointed with the expectations set at only 35 mpg by 2020. Within Vogel's reading, he later explains that it was dropped to the same target but by 2016. Why is it that this target is not higher? It is clear that many cars already hit this mileage, so why not shoot for something higher? Although diesel engines have more ground level particulates associated with them, if funding were shifted to focusing on researching improved diesel engines, then American cars could be comparable to European manufacturers. Until the United States can produce cars which have similar efficiencies to Europe, it seems that our car industry is destined to be the lesser of the two. When researching this online, I found little information on why this target was set, but I can only imagine it is the result of industry pressuring the legislation.
    1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007#Opposition_to_the_bill
2. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
  1. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is the first market-based regulatory program in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The participating members are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to cap and reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector. The hope is that this initiative will spur innovation in the clean energy economy and create green jobs in each state.
    1. http://www.rggi.org/
3. “An Unbalanced Global Political”
  1. Citation
    1. Dauvergne, Peter. The Shadows of Consumption Consequences for the Global Environment. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2008.
  2. Where did/does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? (This question only has to be answered once for Vogel.)
    1. Peter Dauvergne is a Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Politics. His research focuses on the politics of global environmental change, including current projects on sustainable consumption and corporate social responsibility. Other publications of his include Eco-Business, Timber, Paths to a Green World, and Loggers and Degradation in the Asia-Pacific. In 2002 he joined the University of British Columbia and has since served as the Director of the Environment Program at the Lie Institute for Global Issues from 2003-2005, the Associated Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Development in the Faculty of Arts(2006 – 2008), and Senior Advisor to the President (2008 – 2009). In addition he is the founder and past editor of the MIT journal Global Environmental Politics.
  3. What are the topics of the text?
    1. This chapter focuses on the massive picture of globalization and how it has facilitated ecological shadows of consumption. This is further broken down into environmental management, corporate behavior, trade, financing and accountability.
  4. What is the main argument of the text?
    1. The main argument of this chapter is the imbalance of the global political economy which in turn leads to this concept of shadows of consumption. Mr. Dauvergne uses this first chapter of his book to explain the impacts of globalization throughout the world on varying regions based on their level of development and financial stability.
  5. Describe at least three ways that the argument is supported.
    1. “Globalization carries with it underlying values and assumptions about how best to organize the world order, which explains why some see it more as an ideology than a set of processes. One core assumption is that indefinite economic growth is possible and necessary – and, moreover, that “emerging” economies should follow the path of industrial development and intensive agriculture to ensure ever more consumption, and thus prosperity and stability. Consuming more per capita is a sign that all is well, even when the distribution of its benefits is grossly uneven.”
    2. “So far, the “flattening” of the globe under globalization has not, however, brought equal or balanced outcomes for individuals or societies. The superrich like Bill Gates now live on an island in a sea of 2.7 billion people subsisting on less than $2 per day. Over 800 million people, in a world with 946 billionaires worth $3.5 trillion in 2006, continue to suffer from chronic malnutrition. Over a billion people do not even have access to clean water. Forbes magazine ranked Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett as the world’s richest in 2006. Together, these men were worth $108 billion ($56 and $52 billion, respectively). The world’s third richest was not far behind at $49 billion. Tellingly for the unequal effects of globalization, this was Carlos Slim Helú, a citizen and resident of Mexico. The forces generating much of this unequal wealth—corporations, trade, and financing—are especially prone to deflecting ecological costs of consumption away from the wealthy and toward the poor and powerless, a process that may partly explain why some people try to resist, or on occasion fight to reverse, globalization.”
    3. “Japanese trading companies—such as the Mitsubishi and Sumitomo Corporations—began financing networks of firms to import large quantities of cheap natural resources into the fast-growing Japanese economy. Much of these resources, as in the case of wood, came from Southeast Asia. Japan imported, for example, 60 percent of total log production during the height of the logging booms in the old-growth forests of the Philippines (1964–1973) and the Malaysian state of Sabah (1972–1987), and 40 percent during the boom in log exports from Indonesia (1970–1980). These firms turned next to the Malaysian state of Sarawak and to Melanesia after cheap and accessible log supplies declined sharply in the Philippines and Sabah, and after Indonesia restricted raw log exports to prop up its domestic plywood industry. By the mid-1990s, Japan was absorbing about half of the total log exports from Sarawak, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. Japanese processors turned the bulk of these raw logs into plywood panels for a booming construction industry looking for inexpensive ways to mold concrete. These panels, known as “kon pane” in Japanese, were generally burned or left to rot after only a few uses. The reason for such “waste” was straightforward: it was cheaper to buy new panels than clean the old ones.
  6. What three quotes capture the message of the text?
    1. “Thus a globalizing world economy, couple with globalized environmental policies and institutions, can improve environmental management – and is already doing so on some measures…however, this “progress” relies…on an unbalanced process of economic globalization that draws down natural resources and deflects the costs of rising consumption away from those who benefit the most and toward those who benefit the least. Therefore environmental progress may appear to occur in one location while another location absorbs the resulting costs.”
    2. “The global political economy determine the “options” as well as guides the collective “choices” of consumers. This is not a static structure, but a shifting set of forces arising from the interaction of many factors along a lengthy chain, from extraction production to retailing to disposal. The globalization of trade, corporations, and financing is at the core of this global political economy.”
    3. "Globalization is accelerating many of the processes casting ecological shadows by integrating – as well as restructuring – economies, institutions, and societies…The continuing spread of capitalism and Western values, which began long ago under modernization and colonization, plays a role. So do faster technologies, such as airplanes, TVs, and computers, by providing efficient and inexpensive transmission belts for people, resources, money, and knowledge. All of which leads more and more to the world becoming “a single place,” where changes in faraway lands affect people everywhere with greater speed, force, and frequency…”
  7. What three questions about environmental risk and precaution does this article leave you with?
    1. If traditional tools of policy makers and scientists are not appropriate for tracing pathways of cause and effect in these complex global systems, then what methods are?
    2. What barriers would prevent industry from expanding in foreign countries while being investigated in its home nation? Is the suspicion that their products are endangering the population enough to force them to not develop it any further than they have?
    3. Is globalization unsustainable because it was built in that fashion, or is it unsustainable by nature?