Transcript Three Faces of Environmental Politics

Three Faces of
Environmental Politics
Science, Ideology, and
Office-Holding
I. Controversies in Environmental
Politics

Are Navy sonar tests worth the
environmental costs?
I. Controversies in Environmental
Politics


Are Navy sonar tests worth the
environmental costs?
Should SUVs be held to the same
standards as cars?
I. Controversies in Environmental
Politics



Are Navy sonar tests worth the
environmental costs?
Should SUVs be held to the same
standards as cars?
Will more nuclear power help or
harm the environment?
I. Controversies in Environmental
Politics




Are Navy sonar tests worth the
environmental costs?
Should SUVs be held to the same
standards as cars?
Will more nuclear power help or
harm the environment?
Can humans prevent climate
change?
I. Controversies in Environmental
Politics





Are Navy sonar tests worth the
environmental costs?
Should SUVs be held to the same
standards as cars?
Will more nuclear power help or
harm the environment?
Can humans prevent climate
change?
When should we punish people for
harming animals?
The Core Problem
 Real
environmental controversies
have scientific, moral, and political
elements
 But we are…
– Nonscientists who must learn to
evaluate science
– Humans who must find a way to assign
value to nature
– Citizens who must evaluate the policies
of office-holders
 How
can we accomplish this?
II. What is Science?
 This
question is not trivial: it is a
major argument on many
environmental issues
 My approach: Recount the history
and philosophy of science in order to
discover “rules” for
– Separating science from pseudo-science
– Comparing two scientific theories or
explanations
A. Ancient
Science
1.
Plato – World of ideas vs. World of
senses
a. World of Senses = Unreliable – Analogy of
shadows on a wall; everything we see is
imperfect and incomplete in some way.
b. World of Ideas = Truth. Only logic can
reveal the true nature of the world. Idea of
perfect “Forms” which are more real than
anything we see.
2. Aristotelian Science
a.
b.
c.
Rejection of Platonic epistemology –
Aristotle believes that nature is real and
must be studied, using a deductive
method
Rejection of experiment – goal is to
understand what is “natural” and
changing nature is not “natural”
Method = Look for categories in nature
and deduce “essence” of things.
Example 1: Aristotelian Biology
Aristotle observes that male
sheep, goats and pigs have
more teeth than females
 Aristotle argues that men
have more vitality than
women (hotter “essence”)
 Aristotle therefore concludes
that men have more teeth
than women, “by reason of
the abundance of heat and
blood which is more in men
than in women”
 Men and women have the
same number of teeth (on
average) – Aristotle never
bothered to check

Example 2: Aristotelian Gravity




Earth is the center of the
universe
Objects made from the earth
naturally attempt to return
there (i.e. fall to the ground)
The heavier an object is, the
more it desires to be in its
natural state
Objects actually fall at the
same rate, regardless of
mass
d. Ptolemy: Facts  models, not
the other way around
Example: use
math to estimate
positions of the
planets, not to
describe their
“real” motion.
Justification =
many models
describe identical
data (apparent
motion of
planets)
B. The Enlightenment:
Essentialism Rejected
1.
2.
Rediscovery of ancient texts –
reveals ancients didn’t know all the
answers (example: Ptolemy’s orbits
aren’t accurate)
Belief in progress – As economic
growth and technology advanced,
people came to believe that we
would know more in the future (vs.
wisdom of the ancients)
3. The Copernican Revolution
a.
Heliocentrism:
Copernicus argued
that planets
revolved around
the sun – simpler
system than
Ptolemy, but not
(initially) better at
predicting planets’
positions
b. Scientists compare models:
Cumulative knowledge
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Observations undermine idea of “heavenly
spheres” – Tycho Brahe observes comet
passing through planetary orbits
Galileo observes phases of Venus (predicted
by Copernican model but not by Ptolemaic
model) and moons of Jupiter (not
everything revolves around Earth)
Kepler discovers that geometry (ellipse)
describes planetary motion (theory:
sun/God animates the universe)
Newton theorizes that simple mathematical
laws of gravity might explain Kepler’s
model of planetary motion
C. Logical Positivism
1.
2.
3.
Positivism: 19th-Century idea that
scientific knowledge is the only authentic
knowledge.
Logical positivism (early 20th century):
Only statements proven true through
logic (deduction) or observation
(induction) are to be accepted. Fact vs.
value distinction.
Process:
a. Induction: Prove statements true through
observation, then…
b. Deduction: combine these statements to
make new predictions
4. Problems of Logical Positivism
a.
The Inductive Fallacy – How many
observations does it take to
“confirm” a theory?
Inductive Fallacy
Will always get
fed at 9 AM
Fed at 9 AM
everyday
for the past
few months
Christmas at 9 AM
Inductive Fallacy (continued)
How many
functions
(explanations) will 80
perfectly explain 70
60
the data?
50
 An infinite number, 40
30
making
20
dramatically
10
different
0
predictions
0

Score
2
4
6
4. Problems of Logical Positivism
a.
b.
The Inductive Fallacy – How many
observations does it take to
“confirm” a theory?
The Demarcation Problem –
Empirical observation and attempts
at confirmation don’t separate
science and pseudo-science
Who uses empirical methods?
 Astrologers:
Mass of horoscopes,
biographies, star charts
Who uses empirical methods?
 Astrologers:
Mass of horoscopes,
biographies, star charts
 Phrenologists: Thousands of skull
measurements
Who uses empirical methods?
 Astrologers:
Mass of horoscopes,
biographies, star charts
 Phrenologists: Thousands of skull
measurements
 “Scientific” racists: One recent
author tabulates 620 separate
studies of average IQ from 100
different countries with a total
sample size of 813,778 to confirm
hypotheses of racial differences
C. Falsificationism
1.
2.
3.
Karl Popper: Stop trying to confirm
theories and try falsifying them instead
Method: Make novel predictions with
theory that prove the theory false if they
fail to occur (critical experiments)
Result: Scientific theories are never
proven true. Science consists of
conjectures (theories which haven’t
failed yet) and refutations (those which
have failed)
4. The Demarcation Problem
a.
b.
Allows us to reject astrology, etc as
pseudo-science: Astrologers rarely make
testable predictions, and don’t give up
astrology when they fail
Popper argues that Marxism and
Freudianism are both pseudo-science
(example of “false consciousness” in
Marxism) – enough ifs, ands, and buts
allow them to “explain” anything after
the fact, but predict nothing novel
5. Problems of Falsificationism
a.
b.
c.
The ceteris paribus Clause – Theories are
tested “all else being equal” but it never
is.
Virtually all useful scientific theories had
“anomalies” when first stated
(Copernicus, plate tectonics, etc) – strict
falsificationism is a recipe for ignorance
Popper’s solution: require a replacement
theory that explains everything the old
one did, plus something else, before
abandoning old theory (may mean we
retain pseudoscience…)
D. Social Models of Science
1.
Kuhn’s “Paradigm Shifts”
a. Idea: Science is a social activity that proceeds
under a “paradigm” of unquestioned
assumptions about the world and a set of
problems considered to be critical (value
decision)
b. Every interesting theory has anomalies – things
that seem inconsistent with the theory.
c. “Normal science” is puzzle-solving; unexplained
anomalies are simply assumed to be unsolved
puzzles – scientists usually suppress novel
explanations if they can retain their paradigms
(Tycho Brahe believed in an earth-centered
universe, plate tectonics was rejected for
decades, etc)
d. Scientific Revolutions
When enough anomalies start piling up
(especially ones that get in the way of
practical uses of science), new
explanations begin to receive a hearing
 At some point, the new explanation
becomes the “expected” explanation – a
new paradigm
 Note that this is a social process – we
cannot be sure the new paradigm is any
“better” or more accurate than the old
one. It’s just…different.

2. Lakatos: Research Programs
Goal: Retain idea of falsification
while acknowledging that scientists
do not actually reject theories when
anomalies are found
Objections to Kuhn:
a.
b.
i.
Kuhn offers no way of comparing paradigms
– but science often looks like it has
“progressed” over the past centuries
ii. Most fields have multiple “paradigms” at the
same time
c. The Methodology of Scientific
Research Programs
i.
ii.
iii.
Research programs rely on multiple theories to
identify problems and solve puzzles
Each scientific research program has a “hard
core” of unquestioned assumptions and a
“protective belt” of auxiliary hypotheses (i.e.
attempts to “save” the program from
falsification)
Evaluation: Look for “progressive” research
programs (making new predictions and
discoveries) and reject “degenerative” ones
(simply adding to the protective belt without
offering new knowledge)
Example: Neptune





Astronomers discovered that the
orbit of Uranus didn’t match
Newton’s predictions
They did NOT give up Newtonian
physics
They DID add a new item to the
protective belt: something else
must be “perturbing” the orbit of
Uranus
This turned out to be Neptune:
Progressive change to research
program
What if…no Neptune? Could
hypothesize that some
unobservable force acts only on
Uranus  no new predictions =
degenerative shift
d. The Demarcation Problem
 This
was the assigned reading by
Lakatos
 How do we know pseudoscience?
– It critiques science without offering an
alternative set of predictions
– It continually invents new hypotheses
that explain its previous failures but do
NOT make new, falsifiable predictions
E. Conclusion: Standards for
Evaluating Science
1.
Every model must be tested against
another model
a. Simplest model = random chance
(systematic studies of astrology
usually show it fails this test)
b. It takes a model to beat a model –
Where an existing theory outperforms
chance, critics are obligated to suggest
a better explanation for the facts
2. What makes one explanation
better than another?
a.
b.
Progressive vs. degenerative research
programs – A theory or set of theories
that keeps making novel, falsifiable
predictions beats one that keeps adding
new assumptions just to explain what we
already know or generates untestable
hypotheses
Utility – Since we cannot be sure
theories are True or False (ceteris
paribus problem) they need to be useful.
Preference for parsimonious theories
using observable variables.
III. Ideology
A.
Ideology defined: A connected set
of beliefs about what the world
should look like
1. Preferences between states of the
world
2. Rationality: Connected and transitive
preferences
B. Science vs. Ideology?
1.
2.
Science cannot “disprove” ideology
– because they address different
questions!
Prediction vs. Prescription – “Taxes
stifle growth” vs. “Taxes should be
cut.”
a. Ideology adds the “should”
b. Ideology may cause people to make
empirical statements (i.e. taxes and
growth) but the statement is not a
necessary part of the ideology
3. Styles of argument
a.
b.
c.
Science: Hypothesis-testing and theorycomparison using data
Ideology: The “lawyer” style – Starting
with a conclusion and building a case
from confirming evidence
Implication: Scientists can also be
ideologues – “CO2 increases average
temperatures” vs. “Global warming must
be stopped”
C. Activism: How ideologues work
1.
What do Americans think about the
environment?
a. The importance of salience: relative
weight of different issues
C. Activism: How ideologues work
1.
What do Americans think about the
environment?
a. The importance of salience: relative
weight of different issues
b. General sympathy for environmental
movement (activists)
C. Activism: How ideologues work
1.
What do Americans think about the
environment?
a. The importance of salience: relative
weight of different issues
b. General sympathy for environmental
movement (activists)
c. Perception of environment as distant
problem
2. Tactics of environmental activists
a.
Raising the salience of the
environment
i. Time pressure: Argue a “brink” in the
near future
ii. Irrevocable damage: Argue that
environmental damage is different
from economic damage, i.e. cannot be
repaired
iii. Magnify impacts: Argue that
environmental damage is worse than
other problems, i.e. risks human
extinction or other catastrophe
b. Framing the issues
i.
ii.
“Anti-Environmentalism” – Since
public supports environmentalism,
activists portray opponents as antienvironment
The political use of science –
Portray opponents as ignorant of
environmental science
3. Is there an anti-environment
ideology?
a.
b.
c.
d.
Who hates Earth? Not a serious interest
group
Key = some people have objectives they
value MORE than environmental
protection
What are those objectives? Not a unified
ideology: National security, economic
growth, profits, property rights, etc.
Most common adversary of
environmental movement = businesses
4. Tactics of business interests
a.
General strategies
i. Key = be seen as pro-environment
ii. Emphasize issues of higher salience
(gas prices, jobs)
b.
“Greenwashing”
i. Diversionary greenwashing – advertise
small-scale support for environment
while inflicting large-scale damage
This GE ad targets
environmental
sympathies.
What is the message
of the ad?
Ford
 Not
mentioned in
the ad: is they
only produce
20,000 of these
cars a year, while
continuing to
produce almost
80,000 F-series
trucks per month!
Mobil Oil
“Helping the Earth Breathe Easier”
campaign
 Focuses on financial support for
environmental groups

ii. Obfuscatory Greenwashing
 Goal
= sell environmentally-destructive
activity as environmentally-friendly
 Example: “They call it pollution. We
call it life.”
iii. Defensive Greenwashing
Attempts to shift
responsibility from
activities of business to
other businesses or
consumers
 Example: Ad by Clean Sky
Coalition (group of natural
gas companies) 
 Another example: Keep
America Beautiful was
founded by corporations
threatened by mandatory
recycling / waste reduction
proposals. Their most
famous ad: Crying Indian

c. Astroturfing: Front groups
i.
ii.
iii.
Problem: People don’t believe it when
corporations defend their business models
as good for everyone (suspicion of selfinterest)
Solution: Create groups that appear to be
composed of scientists, environmentalists,
economists, workers, etc. Use them as
mouthpieces for the same arguments.
Distinct from ordinary funding: Involves
complete control over group’s message
Examples

Corporate-owned
– Clean Skies Coalition (pro-gas): Entirely
composed of natural gas companies
– Air Quality Standards Coalition (against
mandatory emissions controls): Chaired by
National Association of Manufacturers
– Sea Lion Defense Fund (against fishing
quotas): Association of Alaskan fishing
companies

Extensions of PR/Lobbying Firms
– Alliance for Better Foods (pro-GMO foods/antilabeling): Run by BSMG Worldwide on behalf of
clients such as Monsanto
– National Endangered Species Act Reform
Coalition (seeks to weaken ESA): Shares a fax
number with lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman
IV. Office-Holding and Politics
A.
Politics Defined: Who Gets What? – or
“The authoritative allocation of
resources and values.”
1. Implication: Politics creates winners and losers
2. Key Terms:
a. Authority: Government has a monopoly on
the legitimate use of force, so it is the only one
with the authority to allocate.
b. Resource Allocation: Money, labor, and even
commodities
c. Allocation of Values: Deciding between
incompatible moral or ethical principles
B. A model of politics: How are
resources authoritatively allocated?
C. Agenda-Setting
 Proposing
quo
alternatives to the status
– Status Quo: The way things are (the
current system)
 How
do office-holders view demands
made by citizens? Assume their
perspective for a moment…
1. Individuals
1. Individuals
1. Individuals -- Powerless alone
2. Unorganized Groups
2. Unorganized Groups -- Must be
considered, but cannot set agenda
3. Organized interest groups
3. Organized interest groups -- Set
agenda and shape citizen response
4. Benefits of Organization
a. Credible Commitment -- Conditional support
b. Outreach -- Publicity, Money, Media Access
c. Persuasion -- Information to representatives
5. How to Initiate Change in the US
a. Representatives: The Elected
• Use Money, Votes, Publicity
• Math for politicians:
• Anything + Money = Anything Else
Environmental Group Campaign
Cash, 1990-2006
Energy / Resources Campaign
Contributions, 1990-2006
5. How to Initiate Change in the US
a. Representatives: The Elected
• Use Money, Votes, Publicity
• Math for politicians:
• Anything + Money = Anything Else
b. Bureaucrats: Experts and Career Officials
• Use Information
c. Appointees: Judges, Cabinet, etc.
• Indirect: Target Appointers
• Direct: Information, Lobbying, or Lawsuits
d. ALL: Illegal bribes, Influence Peddling (e.g.
revolving-door lobbying), etc.
B. Government Action
1. Legislation
a. Logrolling: You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours
From the early American practice of neighbors gathering to help clear land
by rolling off and burning felled timber.
Example of Logrolling
 Republicans
add ethanol subsidies to
2002 Energy bill to attract votes of
Democrats from Iowa and the
Dakotas
 Several Democratic Senators
(including majority leader DaschleSD) vote for the bill, enabling its
passage
B. Government Action
1. Legislation
a. Logrolling: You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours
From the early American practice of neighbors gathering to help clear land
by rolling off and burning felled timber.
b. Partisanship
2. Bureaucratic Change
a.
b.
Regulation: Power delegated to
Executive agencies by Congress
Enforcement of laws
• 1981: Anne Gorsuch appointed to
head Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). First act = close
enforcement office (to avoid the
embarassment of overturning
popular environmental standards)
3. Judicial Change
a. Judicial Review: Power of
courts to review laws
b. Interpretation: Court
must interpret words like
“navigable waters” and
“pollutant”
c. Limit: Chevron deference
(if law is unclear, then
defer to Executive)
C. Citizen Response
1. The Media
a. Ideology: Generally economically “conservative” – both owners
and reporters critical of deficits, taxes, wasteful spending, limits
on trade and immigration, etc. – but socially liberal (and quite
pro-environment)
b. Bias
a. Spin Bias: General tendency to sensationalize stories for
immediate impact. Favors catastrophic environmental
scenarios over stories about incremental damage.
b. Citation Bias: Fox (Right), Other Broadcast Networks (Left)
C. Citizen Response
1. The Media
a. Ideology: Generally economically “conservative” – both owners
and reporters critical of deficits, taxes, wasteful spending, limits
on trade and immigration, etc. – but socially liberal (and quite
pro-environment)
b. Bias
a. Spin Bias: General tendency to sensationalize stories for
immediate impact. Favors catastrophic environmental
scenarios over stories about incremental damage.
b. Citation Bias: Fox (Right), Other Broadcast Networks (Left)
c. Effect of Bias: Remarkably small, due to self-selection by
voters
c. How the media covers science
stories
i.
ii.
iii.
Science reporters know little about
science – they are journalists
“Both sides of the story” – Reports on
candy and tooth decay must include
sugar spokesperson… Does this create
false equivalence, or is it necessary for
fairness?
No follow-up – Media loves new
“discoveries” but seldom reports on
whether they hold up to replication
2. How Politicians Manipulate
Activists
a.
b.
c.
d.
“Lesser of two evils” – Convince issue
group to put party ID ahead of issue
stance in individual races
Janus-Face – Politicians say what
activists want to hear
The Takeover – Political activists try to
gain control of established organizations
(Sierra Club immigration battle, NRA
shifts from sporting to gun rights)
Front Groups – Can convince activists to
oppose one’s opponent
3. Elections: The Environmentalist
Office-Holder’s Dilemma
a.
Environmentalism is popular – but
seldom affects vote choice, despite public
support for Democratic policies on the
issue. Why?
a. Low salience
b. Small perceived differences between
candidates on matters of environmental
policy – Probably due to low information
c. Environmentalism is weaker than partisan
feeling – Republicans seldom switch votes
due to the issue, and independents see liitle
difference between parties.
b.
Economic performance DOES affect vote
choice
•
Economy:
Bush
2004
Gore
2000
4. Behavior
a.
b.
Protest: “Battle of Seattle,” EcoTerrorism (ELF)
Non-compliance: 55 MPH Limit
V. Evaluating Environmental
Controversies
A.
Separate the questions
1. Claims about observable variables
a.
b.
Descriptive claims – Arguments about the true
value of a measurable variable, or about its
direction or rate of change
Causal statements – Arguments that increases
in an independent variable will increase or
decrease a dependent variable.
2. Claims about unobservable variables (i.e.
the distant future or what might have
been)
3. Claims about values (should/ought
statements)
B. The right methods for the right
questions
1.
Descriptive or causal statements – use
scientific reasoning (compare theories,
choosing for progressive research
programs over degenerative ones)
a. Physical science – Use physical scientific
theories
b. Social science – Use models of politics and/or
economics
2.
Unobservable variables – Use the best
available theory on observable variables
to predict the unobservable ones
3. Philosophy and Religion
a.
b.
i.
Value claims require moral reasoning
Goals of moral philosophy (scholars
disagree about which ones are
important)
Consistency – Treat morally similar situations
similarly (the same rules apply to all)
ii. Comfort – Willingness to accept/follow the
overall philosophy
iii. Utility – The system should be usable to
quickly render moral judgments using
available data
c.
Value claims have political implications –
about who should get what