Tunnel vision in environmental management

Summary This is a paper about problem-solving styles in Environmental Management and the specific deficiencies in these styles that might be groupd under the label ‘tunnel vision’. The latter, a form of selective attention, contributes to inadequate problem-formulation, partial solutions to complex problems and to the generation of even more intractable, additional problems. Examples of tunnel vision in military and environmental decision-making are discussed, together with the situational, personal and educational factors that exacerbate its influence. The paper concludes with some recommendations for changes in professional education that might help to recduce the occurrence of tunnel vision. Dr Alan Miller who is now associate professor at the University of New Brunswick received his training in biology (in England) and ecology (in Canada). He then spent several years pursuing research at the Northwest Institute for Medical Research in Chicago, USA. A growing interest in the human aspects of environmental and medical problems led to a further graduate study in psychology, followed by teaching positions in Ireland and Canada. His current interests include: the education of environmental professional; the psychosocial problems involved in environmental management, and, the problems inherent in interdisciplinary project groups.     

Transnational environmental problems — The United States,Canada, Mexico

Summary The paper examines the problems associated with transboundary environmental pollution. While briefly recording the efforts of international organizations in this area, the main content of the paper is concerned with an analysis of problems arising between the United States and Mexico, and between the United States and Canada. The paper also discusses new organizational forms that have been developed to bring transboundary issues to a higher policy-making level.Professor Wilcher entered the academic profession after a career in government service. He holds Masters Degrees from West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh and a Doctoral Degree from West Virginia University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at The Pennsylvania State University, New Kensington Campus. He is the author ofEnvironmental Cooperation in the North Atlantic Area published by the University Press of America.     

基于系统动力学的中国绿色发展政策仿真研究

迅速的工业化进程为我国带来了巨大的经济增长,但其引发的资源和环境问题也日益突出,为应对这一严峻挑战,我国开始转变发展思路,推行绿色发展的发展理念。鉴于绿色发展过程中经济、资源、环境多系统之间存在复杂的相互作用,本研究采用系统动力学方法构建了中国经济—资源—环境的动态模型,并在模型有效性的基础上通过五种典型发展模式对政策进行仿真,进而对不同模式未来的发展趋势进行分析。结果表明:加大环保、能源设备更新投资,促进环境友好型、资源节约型社会建设,是我国实现绿色发展的必由之路;绿色发展过程中还要注重各系统间的协调发展,从整体层面制定绿色发展政策;同时,政府还要关注绿色发展的文化建设,促进公众生活和消费方式的绿色转型。     

比较风险评价在环境风险管理中的应用

在环境风险管理中,需要针对不同的管理目标进行评估与排序,实现有限资源供给下的风险管理效率最大化提升。作为环境风险优先管理中的一个重要内容,比较风险评价是针对不同类型环境问题进行评估与排序的方法,它可以从宏观尺度上有效识别出各类环境问题的风险大小顺序,并有针对性进行管理优先级的设置。本文在对国内外比较风险评价研究进行系统梳理的基础上,分析其对我国环境风险管理的意义,提出我国在开展环境问题的比较风险评价、建立与完善环境风险管理工作优先级等方面的建议。     

Subject indicators to present the nature and limit of environmental studies in US graduate schools

Summary The purpose of this paper is to examine subjects to show the nature and limit of interdisciplinary communication in existing environmental programmes in US graduate schools. Ultimately, this analysis may provide more effective communication with the general public. Following comparative historical reviews of both the sciences and the human activity for environmental protection, and a content analysis of empirical documents used by the public, a mushroom computer model has been produced. This model is based on organizational behaviour theory and contains the following 15 subjects which were originally introduced before the lack of communication resulting from curriculum failure in the 19th century: philosophy, politics, economics, architecture, sociology, biology, medicine, agriculture, ecology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, statistics. The subjects should foster effective communication with the general public, leading to more effective environmental protection.Dr Hong S. Kim is at the Environmental Studies Program, California State University, Fullerton, USA. He received a PhD from the Administration and Management Program at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. His numerous papers are focused on environmental pollution analysis, environmental impact assessment, environmental management, and environmental law. He has written a book entitledEnvironmentology which is forthcoming.Dr James P. Dixon is the Chairperson of Health Services at Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401, USA. He was recently Professor of the Department of Policy and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He was also past President of Antioch College (1959–1975). His many publications are concentrated in the areas of organizational development, public health and preventive medicine, and administration of human service organizations.     

Teaching for community environmental action: an alternative instructional model for environmental concepts and issues in schools

Summary Whether environmental education in the school curriculum is treated as a separate subject or as an interdisciplinary entity, the end product should be the same: to provide learners with the desire to preserve or develop optimum environments and to improve less desirable ones. In this endeavour, the learners must ultimately reach out to participate in community decisions and environmental management activities, for that is where the environmental problems abound. Moreover, young persons are generally more knowledgeable than many adults on environmental matters and are more aware of the effects of environmental degradation. When they participate in community environmental management, they may also develop unique and particularly dynamic qualities.Research worldwide suggests that very few teaching programmes encourage environmental participation. In Kenya teachers tend to use deductive teaching methods which do not encourage participation, although there may be ample opportunities in the local environment to facilitate such participation. A more refined, reconstructivist inquiry strategy, committed to the attainment of participative environmental education objectives is suggested. The approach, referred to as an operation-environment instructional model emphasizes action research, supported by a series of other vital stages, as fundamental to the agenda for environmental learning.William W. Toili possesses both Bachelor and Master's Degrees in Education from Nairobi as well as a Master's Degree from the University of Leeds, UK. He is currently a lecturer in Environmental Education at Maseno University College.     

The hazards of risk management

Summary Increasing application of the concept of risk raises several policy and management issues for environmental managers. Functionally, risk can be structured as risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. Each of these functional areas have complex technical issues associated with them that are often unfamiliar to the public.Dr Donald W. Floyd is an Assistant Professor in the School of Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. He specialises in natural resource/environmental policy, with an emphasis on conflict resolution.     

Environmental auditing: Theory and applications

The environmental audit has become a regular part of corporate environmental management in Canada and is also gaining recognition in the public sector. A 1991 survey of 75 private sector companies across Canada revealed that 76% (57/75) had established environmental auditing programs. A similar survey of 19 federal, provincial, and municipal government departments revealed that 11% (2/19) had established such programs. The information gained from environmental audits can be used to facilitate and enhance environmental management from the single facility level to the national and international levels. This paper is divided into two sections: section one examines environmental audits at the facility/company level and discusses environmental audit characteristics, trends, and driving forces not commonly found in the available literature. Important conclusions are: that wherever possible, an action plan to correct the identified problems should be an integral part of an audit, and therefore there should be a close working relationship between auditors, managers, and employees, and that the first audits will generally be more difficult, time consuming, and expensive than subsequent audits. Section two looks at environmental audits in the broader context and discusses the relationship between environmental audits and three other environmental information gathering/analysis tools: environmental impact assessments, state of the environment reports, and new systems of national accounts. The argument is made that the information collected by environmental audits and environmental impact assessments at the facility/company level can be used as the bases for regional and national state of the environment reports and new systems of national accounts.     

Environmental accounting: Neo-classical framework or alternative?

Summary Traditional environmental accounting framework is based on a neo-classical economic theory that treats environmental assets and liabilities as if their contribution to economic acitivity were similar to that of conventional, marketed assets and liabilities. The environment is viewed as a producer of outputs consumed by other productive economic sectors. It is proposed in this article that the environment is not only a producer of outputs, but also an output itself. The environment requires not only its protection, but importantly its continual improvement. Under this framework environmental accounting as a discipline is split into two categories: corporate environmental accounting and social environmental accounting. Two information streams exist under this framework: products-oriented information and environment-oriented information.Dr Simon S. Gao is a Senior Lecturer in the Accounting and Finance Division of the Business School at Staffordshire University. He obtained a BA in Economics in 1993, and an MA in Accounting and Finance, in 1987, both from Shaanxi Institute of Finance and Economics, China. He was recently awarded a PhD from Faculty of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands). His research intersts include among others, environmental accounting and reporting, environmental cost and risk analysis, and environmental asset management. He has published papers widely on accounting and finance issues.     

Environmental quality management in the united states in the 1980s and beyond: An appraisal

Summary This paper presents an overview of: (1) the institutional context of the environmental pollution sector of environmental quality management; (2) accomplishments and problems in some representative subsectors; and (3) prospects. The author describes levels of government within the US federal system and lists types of organizational structures, explains the division of responsibilities for managing environmental quality among legislative bodies/executive agencies, state and federal courts, and state public utility commission, and notes the significant role of nongovernmental environmental groups. In order to assess both the past performance and present status of environmental quality management in the United States, Bower cites some specific and generic problems in such subsectors as water quality, soil erosion, air quality, and hazardous wastes. He goes on to characterize recent approaches and their results using these observations as a basis for an appraisal of future prospects in the context of intermedia impacts and multiple modes of impact on various species. Remarks prepared for presentation at theColloque International, Les Politiques de l'Environnement Face à la Crise, Paris, 10–12 January, 1984. Blair T. Bower, a Registered Civil Engineer, is a Consultant in Residence at Resources For the Future in Washington, DC. He has worked extensively in the US and abroad on environmental quality management with such international organizations as the UN, WHO, OAS, and OECD. His current involvements include consultancies with the US National Oceans and Atmospheric Administration, Strategic Assessments Branch/Oceans Assessment Division; as Leader for Utilization of Coastal Water Problem Areas/Analyzing Biospheric Change Programme, International Federation of Institutes for Advances Study; and with the Office of Policy Analysis/US Environmental Protection Agency. An early supporter of integrated approaches to natural resource/environmental planning and management and to residuals disposal, Mr Bower is the author of many publications on a wide range of environmental topics and management options.     

NELUP: Some Reflections on Undertaking and Reporting InterdisciplinaryRiver Catchment Modelling

NELUP was a five-year academic research project into interdisciplinary river catchment modelling. The experience of staff involved offers useful insights into the intellectual and practical problems associated with interdisciplinary catchment management research and the dissemination and acceptance of results. In particular, it is suggested that: entrenched academic territories, derived from disciplinary and data differences, make managing an interdisciplinary team of researchers a non-trivial task; data errors, model complexity and model generality masked by a seductively sophisticated-looking DSS risk an illusion of technique; and that acceptance of decision support is hindered by practitionersand policy makers' suspicion of potential automated decision making by default.     

Public attitudes on environment,energy and the economy — Implications for policy

Summary During the last ten years environmental quality and energy have emerged as important national issues right along with the economy. The central proposition appears to be that environmental concerns are inversely related to concern about energy and the economy. The common assumptions about public perception of the trade-offs between environmental quality, economic growth, and energy production are shown to be invalid. In any event it is unlikely that public policy makers will find themselves strongly pulled by a highly polarized public.David J. Rosen is an assistant professor in the Department of Human Ecology, Cook College of Environmental and Agricultural Sciences, Rutgers University (U.S.A.) where he teaches in the interdisciplinary International Environmental Studies and Human Ecology curricula. While formally trained as a political scientist (Ph D, Rutgers University, 1975) for the past six years his research on energy and environmental matters has become increasingly interdisciplinary. The subjects of his work have ranged from the international energy system to the provision of solar energy incentives by state government. He has also served as a consultant to government and private organizations on a number of energy and environmental projects.     

Bottom up and top down: analysis of participatory processes for sustainability indicator identification as a pathway to community empowerment and sustainable environmental management

The modern environmental management literature stresses the need for community involvement to identify indicators to monitor progress towards sustainable development and environmental management goals. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of participatory processes on sustainability indicator identification and environmental management in three disparate case studies. The first is a process of developing partnerships between First Nations communities, environmental groups, and forestry companies to resolve conflicts over forest management in Western Canada. The second describes a situation in Botswana where local pastoral communities worked with development researchers to reduce desertification. The third case study details an on-going government led process of developing sustainability indicators in Guernsey, UK, that was designed to monitor the environmental, social, and economic impacts of changes in the economy. The comparative assessment between case studies allows us to draw three primary conclusions. (1) The identification and collection of sustainability indicators not only provide valuable databases for making management decisions, but the process of engaging people to select indicators also provides an opportunity for community empowerment that conventional development approaches have failed to provide. (2) Multi-stakeholder processes must formally feed into decision-making forums or they risk being viewed as irrelevant by policy-makers and stakeholders. (3) Since ecological boundaries rarely meet up with political jurisdictions, it is necessary to be flexible when choosing the scale at which monitoring and decision-making occurs. This requires an awareness of major environmental pathways that run through landscapes to understand how seemingly remote areas may be connected in ways that are not immediately apparent.     

污染场地风险管控环境经济政策体系：国外经验与本土实践

快速城市化和工业化给我国带来了大量的场地污染问题,污染场地修复和风险管控成为国土资源可持续利用的重要领域,创新土壤污染防治经济政策,充分发挥市场调节作用是土壤污染防治的内在要求,是破解土壤生态环境问题、推进土壤污染防治管理转型的重要支撑。本文从经济政策的体系、投融资模式与机制等方面展开,对美国、德国、荷兰等发达国家的污染场地风险管控环境经济政策进行了梳理分析,总结其可借鉴的成功经验;介绍了我国污染场地风险管控环境经济政策实施现状,最终从完善调控体系、明晰权责归属、拓宽资金来源、规范资金运营、丰富投融资模式、探索费用效益分析机制等方面提出我国污染场地风险管控环境经济政策体系的改进建议。     

Risk management: Time for innovative approaches

Risk management practices under the current environmental regulations is a long, complex process that considers scientific, technologic, and management factors to develop various regulatory standards and pollution control measures. Using the mandatory enforcement approach, sometimes referred to as “command-and-control”, a set of preliminary environmental goals, such as better air and water qualities, were achieved. However, the information-intensive nature of the risk management process and the lack of flexibility in conventional regulatory methods to changing economic and technologic realities of the decade has created interest among risk managers to examine some innovative management approaches. Above all, environmental problems of a global scale require novel management methods while striving to achieve the desired environmental goals. As the principal analytical tool in risk management, quantitative risk assessment exerts considerable influence on the risk management process. Therefore, advances in risk management are closely associated with scientific developments that enhance the risk assessment process, particularly those efforts aimed at improving human exposure and toxicity assessments. Market incentives, information dissemination, creative enforcement practices, and interagency and intergovernmental interactions were identified as the key elements of innovative environmental risk management practices. This paper will present an overview of the emerging innovative risk management approaches.     

College and university environmental programs as a policy problem (part 2): strategies for improvement

Environmental studies and environmental sciences programs in American and Canadian colleges and universities seek to ameliorate environmental problems through empirical enquiry and analytic judgment. In a companion article (Part 1) we describe the environmental program movement (EPM) and discuss factors that have hindered its performance. Here, we complete our analysis by proposing strategies for improvement. We recommend that environmental programs re-organize around three principles. First, adopt as an overriding goal the concept of human dignity??defined as freedom and social justice in healthy, sustainable environments. This clear higher-order goal captures the human and environmental aspirations of the EPM and would provide a more coherent direction for the efforts of diverse participants. Second, employ an explicit, genuinely interdisciplinary analytical framework that facilitates the use of multiple methods to investigate and address environmental and social problems in context. Third, develop educational programs and applied experiences that provide students with the technical knowledge, powers of observation, critical thinking skills and management acumen required for them to become effective professionals and leaders. Organizing around these three principles would build unity in the EPM while at the same time capitalizing on the strengths of the many disciplines and diverse local conditions involved.     

Policy planning under uncertainty: efficient starting populations for simulation-optimization methods applied to municipal solid waste management

Evolutionary simulation-optimization (ESO) techniques can be adapted to model a wide variety of problem types in which system components are stochastic. Grey programming (GP) methods have been previously applied to numerous environmental planning problems containing uncertain information. In this paper, ESO is combined with GP for policy planning to create a hybrid solution approach named GESO. It can be shown that multiple policy alternatives meeting required system criteria, or modelling-to-generate-alternatives (MGA), can be quickly and efficiently created by applying GESO to this case data. The efficacy of GESO is illustrated using a municipal solid waste management case taken from the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth in the Province of Ontario, Canada. The MGA capability of GESO is especially meaningful for large-scale real-world planning problems and the practicality of this procedure can easily be extended from MSW systems to many other planning applications containing significant sources of uncertainty.     

浅谈我国土壤问题特征及国外土壤环境管理经验借鉴

随着我国社会经济的发展,土壤污染问题逐渐显露。而且我国土壤环境问题及污染防治工作在相当长时间内没有得到应有的重视,土壤污染问题逐渐暴露。加强土壤环境管理是我国土壤环境保护的一项基础性工作,具有十分重要的意义。本文研究分析我国与国外土壤环境问题的差异,总结美国、荷兰、日本三个国家土壤环境管理的经验及其借鉴意义,综合考虑我国发展国情、土壤环境问题特征及土壤环境管理基础,确定我国土壤环境管理要依靠"行政推动和法律监管相结合",提出一个涵盖土壤环境法律法规、标准、技术和装备能力建设(监测、监管、监理、风险管控)、人员队伍建设的适应我国土壤环境问题特征的综合环境管理体系。     

Project approval,environmental assessment and public participation

Summary Assessing the desirability of large scale resource development is an extremely complicated process. In the past, the presumption has been that economic criteria were decisive. Lately, however, we have accepted the idea that social and environmental factors will affect the design and procedures of development, and, in extreme cases, may even indicate the abandonment of a project. Public input and formal environmental and social impact assessment have been accepted in principle, and the challenge is to incorporate them within an orderly and expeditious governmental decision process. This is a case study of such a process for Esso Resources Canada Limited's proposed heavy oil project at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada. P. S. Elder was Gold Medallist and Law Review Editor upon graduating from the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia (1965). Following his call to the Bar and graduate work at the University of London (London School of Economics), he was an aide to various Canadian federal cabinet ministers (1967–70) and taught law at the University of Western Ontario (1970–73). In 1973 Professor Elder joined the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he teaches legally related subjects. He has written widely in environmental law and policy, and public participation. In his free time Elder engages in municipal and provincial politics     

Industry Response to the Challenge of Sustainability: The Case of the Canadian Nonferrous Mining Sector

/ The paper investigates how the Canadian nonferrous sector is tackling the challenge of sustainable development. Although there is no consensus as to what sustainable development means in practice for management in the sector, at least three dimensions must be taken into account: (1) metals are recyclable, the availability of this resource is not a concern for the foreseeable future; (2) the need to minimize environmental impacts of metals exploration, extraction, transformation, consumption, and recycling; and (3) production activities should not be socially or culturally disruptive. The nonferrous mining industry faces several environmental problems. Some of the most significant are acid mine drainage, sulfur emissions, recycling, and metals toxicity. The industry has developed a number of responses to address these specific concerns as well as other more general challenges. Six strategies are described and analyzed: (1) research and development, (2) an effort of consensus building among stakeholders known as the Whitehorse Mining Initiative, (3) international networking, (4) active involvement in the development of environmental management standards, (5) management reorganization and (6) voluntary agreements. The importance of external factors in the shaping of corporate environmental management practices is discussed, in particular the role of government. Progress has been achieved in three areas: (1) managerial practices and organization, (2) reducing the impacts of ongoing operations and (3) minimizing future liabilities, but two significant fields of conflict remain, namely mining in wilderness areas and projects on aboriginal lands.KEY WORDS: Canada; Environmental management; Minerals industry; Nonferrous metals; Sustainable development; Whitehorse Mining Initiative