Environmental Coalition Research Articles

Environmental and occupational health coalitions.

Environmental and occupational health coalitions.

Reevaluation and renegotiation of climate change coalitions—a sequential closed-loop game approach

Major international environmental problems can be characterized as stock externality phenomena. Long-term international environmental coalitions are subject to unexpected shocks. Certain shocks might have strong impacts on regional environmental policies and their commitments to the coalition. The open-loop solutions in optimal control problems and differential games cannot capture regions’ reactions to those shocks. In this paper, we develop a feasible modeling approach that uses the closed-loop strategies to study the issues of reevaluation and renegotiation of climate change coalitions. For the purpose, we design an algorithm that decomposes a closed-loop strategy into a sequence of open-loop equilibria and implement the algorithm in the RICE model (Am. Econ. Rev. 86 (1996) 741), an integrated assessment model of climate change and economies. We analyze policy and methodological implications of the closed-loop strategies through simulations of the RICE model.

Report from Morelia: Towards the Formation of “The Observatory of the Americas”

The “First Conference on Occupational and Environmental Health under the Framework of Integration of the Americas” was held on August 13-16, 2000 at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, Morelia, state of Michoacan, Mexico. The conference had two broad and related purposes. The first was to bring together representatives from academia, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions, as well as public policy-makers, from South, Central, and North America to exchange information and views about worker and community health in the region of the Americas. While not completely successful in this effort, as most of those attending were health and safety professionals, participants also included representatives from Mexican and U.S. community groups and environmental coalitions as well as others from the Canadian Auto Workers, Canada’s largest private sector labor union. The second purpose of the conference was to lay the foundation for the creation of a permanent and on-going “Observatory of the Americas.” The Observatory is envisioned as a network of professionals and activists in occupational and environmental health that would serve as a tool for international cooperation and solidarity among the different institutions and efforts taking place in the Americas

Getting out the Cut

To what extent do national forest policy decisions reflect a balance between the interests of environmentalists and the timber industries? National forest policy making from 1960 through 1995 was analyzed using the advocacy coalition framework developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith. The authors found that forest policy shifted in a more ecologically sensitive direction beginning in the late 1980s. Changes were largely attributable to the ability of the environmental coalition to manipulate new information to influence key decision makers within Congress and to take advantage of more favorable decisional venues to overcome structural biases built into existing forest policy-making arrangements.

Co-Opting Justice: Transformation of a Multiracial Environmental Coalition in Southern Alabama

Between 1996 and 1998, plans to construct one of the nation's largest phenol plants near Mobile, Alabama, generated intense local opposition. Mobile Bay Watch, a movement originating among upper-middle-class whites, sought support from a nearby African American community to stop plant construction. In the process, it changed its focus from property values to the public health concerns of low-income residents. Yet, its strategies to encourage minority participation found mixed success. This paper examines how grassroots activists respond to regulatory policies that delegitimate their concerns and to new opportunities arising from federal environmental law, in the process transforming the strategies and claims of their movement.

Dos modalidades de participación ciudadana en política ambiental

En las discusiones sobre desarrollo sustentable, la participación ciudadana es el común denominador, el fundamento sobre el que se construye el desarrollo de una nación de manera sustentable (ecológica, económica y socialmente aceptable). Hay una gran diversidad de modalidades de participación. El propósito de este artículo es examinar dos modalidades de participación ciudadana en materia de política de medio ambiente: la formación de coaliciones ambientales y los procesos de construcción de consensos (mesas redondas multiparticipativas o procesos multiparticipativos). Nuestra tesis es que la sociedad ha reclamado su posición en una democracia incipiente, y que la participación es prerrequisito para un desarrollo sustentable. Hacemos un análisis descriptivo de ambas modalidades en el contexto de la sustentabilidad y comparamos las dos modalidades para determinar cuál es su relevancia y la posibilidad de aplicar cualesquiera de ambas al proceso de política pública ambiental en México.

Industry perspective. Environmental business action coalition, representing industry on multimedia environmental business initiatives

Industry perspective. Environmental business action coalition, representing industry on multimedia environmental business initiatives

Industry perspective: Environmental business action coalition pushes for superfund reform

Industry perspective: Environmental business action coalition pushes for superfund reform

Environmental Coalitions With Heterogeneous Countries: Burden-Sharing and Carbon Leakage

In this paper a simple model is used to analyse the strategic behaviour of countries that bargain over CO2 emission reductions. Five main world regions are considered and their incentives to sign an international agreement on climate change control are analysed. A non-cooperativ e approach to coalition formation is used to analyse profitability and stability of the agreement. The main focus of the paper is on the role of carbon leakage. On the one hand, by offsetting the effort of signatory countries, carbon leakage reduces the size of the equilibrium coalition and even the likelihood of a successful negotiation. On the other hand, by increasing the profitability of large coalitions, carbon leakage may stabilise agreements signed by many countries. The paper shows that both the size of leakage and the burden-sharing rule used to share the gains from cooperation among signatory countries are crucial variables which explain the type and size of the equilibrium coalitions.

International Games on Climate Change Control

In this paper a n-player non-cooperative game is used to model countries' decision of whether or not to sign an international agreement on climate change control. The stable coalition structure of the game is defined and then computed for a climate game in which the role of carbon leakage is also taken into account. At the equilibrium, a coalition may emerge despite the public good nature of climate. The size of the coalition depends on the degree of interdependence of countries' emission strategies, and on the type of conjectures that each country forms on the consequences of its own decision to join or to defect from the environmental coalition.

Constructing global civil society actors: An anatomy of the environmental coalition contesting the tropical timber trade regime

(1998). Constructing global civil society actors: An anatomy of the environmental coalition contesting the tropical timber trade regime. Global Society: Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 343-361.

Uncertainty and the Choice of Policy Instruments A Note On Baumol and Oates Propositions

Baumol and Oates' propositions, the irrelevancy of benefit uncertainty and the importance of cost uncertainty on the choice between a tax and a system of marketable permits, are limited to a large-number case in which the opportunities for victims of pollution to participate in a permit market are non-existent. However, with the evolution of environmental groups and coalitions of victims in neighborhoods, the large-number case can easily transform into a small-number case. This paper shows that when the pollution standard, set at what appears to be optimal ex ante, is excessively lenient, the system of marketable permits offers such groups a flexibility to buy pollution permits in a competitive market and destroy them until the optimal solution is realized. In the reverse situation, however, Baumol and Oates propositions are unambiguously valid.

The Greening of Protectionism—Industry and Environmental Coalitions to Oppose Trade Pacts

The Greening of Protectionism—<i>Industry and Environmental Coalitions to Oppose Trade Pacts</i>

Windy craggy An analysis of environmental interest group and mining industry approaches

Organization of and communication among environmental interest groups can result in the formation of environmental coalitions. These coalitions, in conjunction with governmental support for increased public participation, have changed the public policy milieu within which mining industries must function in North America. Opposition by environmental interests has increased the complexity of mine project development, consequently increasing the time and cost of implementation and creating greater risk for the developer. The Windy Craggy issue is a highly visible example of this phenomenon. An organized environmental coalition responded quickly to the proposed Windy Craggy mine in north-western British Columbia. Efforts by proponents to counter negative publicity were inadequate and late. Pressure from the public and environmental interests played major roles in the rejection of the project, a decision with significant repercussions for the entire Canadian mining sector.

Korea’s Environmental Sociology: Toward an Environmental Coalition in East Asia

Korea’s Environmental Sociology: Toward an Environmental Coalition in East Asia

Environmental Movements: Pitfalls Not Fatal

Environmental Movements: Pitfalls Not Fatal Dianne Bady I have been thinking a lot lately about the sustainability of the statewide West Virginia environmental movement. I've been intimately involved with two specific environmental issues where the initial united citizens' effort was not sustained, and where the forces of environmental darkness have benefited tremendously as a result. In 1983, Ashland Oil built a new unit to refine heavily contaminated oil. Almost immediately, refinery neighbors began getting sick from the excessive pollution. Since then, organized citizen pressure has resulted in a decrease in episodes of heavy, caustic "fallout," which eats the paint off cars and houses. However, there are still frequent refinery problems which result in excessive toxic air emissions. There are still many health complaints from refinery neighbors. Now how can this go on for ten years? I think the reason is simple. Ashland Oil has a lot more political power than the people who live around the refinery who would like the air they breathe not to make them sick. If all the people who live near Ashland Oil, both from the West Virginia and the Kentucky sides, if all the people who are upset about this issue could work together and figure out how there can be a united front to get the problem solved, the political reality would change. I've been heavily involved in this pollution controversy. I've worked closely with grass-roots people for almost four years now, and I've watched a tragic thing happen. I've watched people start out united. We were able to get Senator Byrd to say to the EPA, "You've got to come in here and study this situation." But in less than a year, there Dianne Bady, a socialpsychologist, is the director ofthe Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC). OVEC is located in the tristate region where West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio join. The mailing address is PO Box 970, Proctorville, OH 45669. 48 were tremendously stressful situations for everybody involved. There were personal disagreements about the strategy, lots of bruised egos, people talking behind people's backs, jealousy. The united front split, and is now factioned. And that is the best thing that could have happened to Ashland Oil. I believe that is the reason why the problem still exists. Before moving to this area eight years ago, I was involved in northern Wisconsin in efforts to keep copper and uranium mines out of pristine wetlands. When the plan was first announced, people joined together in a united front, and tliey stopped that mining company in its tracks. The mining company had never seen anything like it before. But then the company took a different approach. They went to the legislature to get the laws that would allow them to override local opposition. Well, just as in the Ashland Oil situation, there were high stress, personal disagreements, bruised egos, jealousy, people talking behind each others' backs. After about a year of that, there was no longer a united front, there were different factions. That was the best thing that could have happened to Kennecott Copper. Now those pristine wetlands have been ripped up by Kennecott mining equipment, and water contamination has already occurred. I can't help thinldng about these experiences when I think about how impressed I am by the united environmental movement here in West Virginia. I just marvel at the talent of the people involved. I marvel at the commitment, the credibility we've built up with the media, with legislators, with the public officials. But I can't help being a little scared, too. We've been at this for about four years now, and united we stand, divided we fall. I've agonized long and hard over the united efforts I've seen tumble. Believe me, that is painful. I would hate to see that happen to our statewide movement, which unites activists working on a variety ofissues. It seems to me that activists often have certain implicit ideas which lead to trouble. They may not be things that we consciously think. But for most of us, they're there. Some of those ideas might go like this: "The people I work...

Conserving America's Freshwater Ecosystems: The Wilderness Society's Approach

The Wilderness Society is a national environmental organization in the United States dedicated primarily to protection of public lands. Because of growing concern over aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity, the Society is involved in a number of freshwater conservation projects. In the Florida Everglades, the Society is part of an environmental coalition that has succeeded in expanding the national park to help restore natural water flows and is seeking legislation to begin a major redesign of the region's canal system. In the Pacific Northwest, the Society is using its geographic information study to examine the impact of land use on salmon habitat and populations. Based on evidence of rapidly declining salmon populations, environmentalists are taking legal action to prevent further degradation of aquatic habitats in the Northwest. Scientific research, testimony, and advice are increasingly needed by environmental advocates seeking to influence public policy.

The Changing Face of the Environmental Coalition

This research examines changes in the environmental coalition over the 1980s. During these years, concern over environmental problems has increased. How has the coalition favoring greater environmental protection changed? We use logistic regression to examine changing determinants of support for increased environmental spending. In brief, ideology, party identification, and age become less important as determinants, and education and urban residence become more important. The implications are discussed.

Environmental Coalition of 10 Groups Attacks Reagan Policies

Environmental Coalition of 10 Groups Attacks Reagan Policies

Reconciling Agricultural Pricing, Environmental, Conservation, Energy, and Structural Concerns: Discussion

Farm legislation in 1981 is no more likely to change socio-economic or environmental issues than the legislation passed in 1977. The policy issues, with land use at the focus, may evolve during the 1980s, but farmers will have to join conservation and environmental coalitions if they want price and income policies to continue because of institutional barriers at the national level. A strong constituency to overcome these barriers will require single-issue groups to develop broader concerns which are sometimes conflicting. Government agencies will have to become more cooperative. Although the budget process should be able to reconcile conflicting policies, the basic institutional structure must change first. (DCK)