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2021 | Buch

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Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse

verfasst von: Richard M. Robinson

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Environmental Politics and Theory

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book explores the meaning and role of “fair and reasoned discourse” in the

context of our institutions for environmental decision processes. The book

reviews the roles of our “environmental advocacy organizations”—such as The

Sierra Club, The Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund—in providing

and ensuring that our discourse and decisions are fair and reasoned according to

the criteria of being (i) inclusive of input from all affected, (ii) informed of relevant

scientific and socio-economic information, (iii) uncorrupted by direct conflicts of

interest, and (iv) logical according robust review by uncorrupted judges. These

organizations are described and examined as expressions of “collective imperfect

duty,” i.e. the coordinated duties with environmental direction. The current state

of our discourse is examined in light of this fairness criteria, particularly in

consideration of the cross-border problems that threaten tragedies of the global

commons.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. The Normative Elements of Our Social Discourse and the Environmental Issues to Be Confronted

Abstract

The essential elements of our reasoned environmental social discourse are moral. By their nature, they pose the practical and ideal norms that society pursues and also uses to judge its actual environmental decisions and attainments. Clarity as to the composition of these ideal elements of discourse—such as whether it’s inclusive, whether it’s fully informed, whether it’s logical and uncorrupted by conflicts of interest—facilitates progress in matters of environmental preservation and restoration. Our age, however, demonstrates an obfuscation of these moral elements, an unsureness as to whether our discourse has been “fair and reasoned.” This obfuscation inhibits environmental progress. This chapter introduces a series of six questions examined in this book. These questions give direction to our exploration of environmental discourse and our associated efforts at preservation and restoration. This book argues that our environmental advocacy organizations play a crucial role in facilitating “fair and reasoned environmental discourse and resulting decisions.” This is the argument initially introduced by this chapter.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 2. Our Reasoned Environmental Discourse

Abstract

This chapter argues that we create our society’s aspirational norms for environmental preservation and restoration through our social process of moral construction. This is a political process that leads to our practical norms for “fair and reasoned discourse,” e.g., this discourse should be informed, inclusive of the opinions of those affected, uncorrupted by personal and direct conflicts of interest, and logical in premises and deductions. From this discourse of moral construction, our environmental duties—both perfect and imperfect—are derived. The latter duty is shown to be the key to the formation of our environmental advocacy organizations as well as for their efforts.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 3. Recognizing Environmental Duties and Applying Our “Fair and Reasoned” Criteria

Abstract

This chapter further examines the necessary and useful distinctions between perfect and imperfect duties. In this context, it introduces and examines propositions of (i) mutual dependence, (ii) the necessity of obtaining and applying knowledge of our environmental impacts, and (iii) the global environmental community. The chapter then examines the duty-based discourse criteria of O’Neill, and also Habermas, but in the context of environmental considerations. This material is shown to be the basis of our environmental advocacy organizations (EAOs), their coalitions, and their involvement in our “reasoned social discourse” and resulting resolutions. This chapter also introduces environmental applications of the Rawlsian criteria for “competent moral judges” and “considered moral judgments.” The duty implications of these sets of criteria establish what is meant by “fair and reasoned discourse and decisions” in environmental matters.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 4. The Philosophy of Community and the Environmental Ethic

Abstract

The “specialness” of our involvements in environmental organizations result from our pursuit of collective imperfect duty. This is reviewed here with reference to some recent contributions: Gillroy’s “Justice from Autonomy” and also Habermas’ “discourse ethics.” These involvements are explained as necessary for society’s processes and environmental decisions to be “fair and reasoned.” As inputs to these processes, the inspirational aspects of the “sacredness of nature,” as expressed in the classic American environmental literature of Emerson, Thoreau, Muir, Leopold, and Douglas are examined as a motivating foundation for natural preservation in the public domain. These inspirational and sacred aspects support Gillroy’s notion of the “intrinsic value of nature.”

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 5. Reaching Unbiased and Stable Environmental Decisions Through Fair and Reasoned Discourse

Abstract

This chapter explores the nature of our environmental resolutions. It reviews the “new economic institutional” approach concerning how environmental agreements are established, evolve, and address possible oncoming problems. The philosophical notion of “fair and reasoned discourse” as applied to reaching these resolutions is reviewed. The specific criteria required for “fair and reasoned” is also more fully developed for applications in the latter chapters. Some of the biases in this discourse are reviewed as they affect environmental discourse and resolutions.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 6. The Environment as an Input to Production and as a Provider of Amenities

Abstract

The rhetoric of welfare analysis concerning the often-cited hypothetical tradeoffs of environmental amenities versus industrial production is analyzed here. These tradeoffs also pertain to the problem of equity for future generations and people at distance. A Rawlsian analysis of these equity problems is presented as an ethical solution. The rhetoric of the “Coase Theorem” is a substantial part of this notion of welfare efficiency as reviewed here. The cost–benefit analysis for government-provided environmental-related projects is also reviewed, and this includes the methodology for the current evaluation of environmental quality impacts.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 7. Some Rhetoric of Environmental Equity and Economic Efficiency

Abstract

Our society’s environmental discourse is entwined with notions of economic efficiency and equity associated with the impacts of regulation, preservation, and restoration. Society’s conceptions of economic efficiency, especially the effects of both negative and positive externalities, form much of the substance of this rhetoric. This rhetoric also includes the distributional effects of these externalities. This chapter reviews some of this neoclassical economic rhetoric. It also addresses the issue of government market power as it affects the provision of environmental amenities, particularly in the context of society’s demands for inclusive reasoned discourse in consideration of environmental projects.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 8. Duty, Environmental Advocacy Organizations, and the Commons

Abstract

This chapter further explores the notion of “collective imperfect duty.” It uses this notion to further define “the commons” as a conceptual and often legal entity that emerges from “collective imperfect duty.” This phenomenon explains the rise of environmental advocacy organizations that express society’s interests in the most significant problem of our time. By promulgating their expertise into the public sphere, these organizations not only provide the scientific and socio-economic information and expertise necessary for our social discourse to be “reasoned,” but they also assert the “noble nature” of declaring the immorality of environmental destruction. They do this in our public discourse thereby making it “reasoned.” As illustrations, this chapter also examines the history of, and the current contributions of three of these environmental advocacy organizations: The Wilderness Society, The Sierra Club, and The Environmental Defense Fund. The role of a business coalition, the Western Energy Alliance, is also reviewed.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 9. The Current State of Environmental Discourse: Is It “Fair” or Otherwise?

Abstract

The previous chapters developed criteria for “fair and reasoned” decisions in the context of our social discourse as it concerns environmental matters; i.e., whether this discourse was inclusive (or paternalistic), fully informed, logical, and uncorrupted. The discourse examples addressed here concern (i) “clean coal” and its associated “acid rain,” (ii) agriculturally caused water pollution and its associated “dead zones,” (iii) gas and oil drilling on public lands, and (iv) “species preservation” and its associated obfuscations. They are examined here via this “fair and reasonable criteria.” The conclusions drawn from these case examinations indicate the extents of fulfilling these criteria.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 10. Some Environmental Organizations and Their “Fair and Reasoned” Contributions

Abstract

This chapter reviews the efforts of four environmental organizations and coalitions: (1) The Friends of the Everglades, (2) The Friends of the Columbia River Gorge, the (3) Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the (4) Riverkeepers coalition. They all illustrate the fundamental theme of this monograph, i.e., that our nongovernment environmental advocacy organizations and coalitions are necessary to satisfy the “fair and reasoned criteria” we require of public decisions. As established in previous chapters, this “fair and reasoned criteria” specifies that (i) the decision makers are uncorrupted by conflicts of interest, (ii) the decision makers are fully informed of the relevant scientific and socio-economic analyses, (iii) the decision process is fully open to considerations of all affected interests, and (iv) the decision itself is logical according to the “stability criteria” of Rawls as explained in Chapter 3. Ostrom’s institutional analyses and requirements are also applied to these four organizational examples. A conclusion concerning the political motivation behind the formation of environmental organizations is posed and substantiated.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 11. Cross Border Governmental Organizations and Tragedies of the Commons

Abstract

The four cases of cross-border management of water resource reviewed in this chapter include the Northwest Atlantic ground-fishery, the Columbia River anadromous fishery, the Colorado River Compact water allocation system, and the Great Lakes Commission and Compact. They illustrate the associated problems with cross-border governmental resource management. Among other lessons, they show that effectiveness relies on the “good will” of the negotiators as well as the pursuit of the principles reviewed in previous chapters.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 12. Common Property Resources and the Making of the Global Tragedy

Abstract

This chapter defines a global commons as (1) those oceans and seas outside of any single country’s political domain, (2) our globally circulating atmosphere, and (3) the various river systems and other land masses such as mountain ranges and large forests that either cross political boundaries or are outside the political domain of any single country. The political difficulties of forming the “collective imperfect duties” necessary for managing these global commons are reviewed with the examples of some of the world’s more significant forests and river systems being examined as illustrations. These “difficulties” can be mitigated by the world’s ability to generate the necessary data for facilitating a political solution, and by the application of the “fairness criteria” that were developed and explored in the chapters above. The roles of three international environmental advocacy organizations (EAOs)—The Nature Conservancy, The World Wildlife Fund, and Greenpeace—in developing awareness of the tragedy of the global commons are also reviewed. The roles of these and similar organizations are shown to possibly pose some of the answers to the six questions presented in Chapter 1.

Richard M. Robinson

Chapter 13. Concluding Remarks: Our Environmental Advocacy Organizations and the Nature of the Crisis

Abstract

The conundrums of climate change, of replumbing our US’ Western water resources, of restoring our trout streams, these are some of the problems we must confront in order to bequeath an acceptable environment to the future. Our motivations for confronting these issues lead us to our EAO involvements.

Richard M. Robinson

Backmatter

Titel: Environmental Organizations and Reasoned Discourse
verfasst von: Richard M. Robinson
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-75606-2
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-75605-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75606-2