What is Environmental Politics?. Elizabeth R. DeSombre

What is Environmental Politics? - Elizabeth R. DeSombre


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are likely to use less gasoline, and when you have building materials made out of plastic or aluminum you are no longer in the market for wood.

      Were we to get to a point when we were almost out of oil or rare earth elements, or even wood, the price of that resource would be so high that it wouldn’t be cost effective to extract or use it. By that point society will have shifted to other ways of providing energy or technological components or building materials. It is in that sense that we will not run out.

      Even though we may not, technically, use up the last of these resources, there are other reasons to pay attention to them. An important aspect of environmental concern is the ecological destruction that results from extracting resources. Once the most easily accessible sources of these materials have been exhausted, removing them can cause serious damage to landscapes and ecosystems. Mountaintop removal to access underground coal destroys ecosystems and pollutes waterways; mining and processing metals can put toxic chemicals and other dangerous substances into the air and water, among other harms.

      Many of these non-renewable resources are themselves the cause of serious pollution, even apart from their extraction. Coal, oil, and gas cause air pollution and are major contributors to global climate change. So even if we are not in danger of actually running out of them, their use causes damage to the environment.

      What does it mean to study politics, and how does that differ from looking at policy? Policy is the specific set of approaches society has chosen (often through governmental processes) to address problems or provide services to people. Politics, on the other hand, is the process within society for making those types of policy decisions. This distinction is important and often elided; we can’t understand the rules we create to prevent or address (or fail to prevent or address) environmental problems unless we begin by looking at the different preferences that various sectors of society have for economic or environmental benefits and the political structures through which these social decisions are made.

      Those who advocate for policies to protect the environment often overlook the political aspect of policy: any decision involves a set of tradeoffs between different types of benefits or harms to different groups of people. Politics is the social process of arguing for, and deciding how to make, those tradeoffs. In that process, a simple policy idea may undergo major transformation as political jockeying attempts to carve out benefits for different constituencies. What to economists might look like a simple and effective tax on gasoline is likely to become much more complicated – and less environmentally effective – as exceptions are made for different populations or conditions. In addition, once passed, policy needs to be implemented, and it may face different levels of political capacity to impose, monitor, or enforce rules.

      For example, climate change is caused, in large part, by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). People who make a living, directly or indirectly, from this industry would likely prefer that we continue to use these fuels; after all, they may find themselves without employment if their industry ceases to operate. Countries with large reserves of fossil fuels would have to give up their right to use what is, for them, essentially free sources of energy, a costly decision for them that might constrain other important priorities they have for providing benefits to their citizens. Those people most affected by existing climate change – people who live in low-lying island states already affected by sea-level rise, for instance – are likely to be strongly in favor of reducing fossil-fuel use. (And since climate change is also caused by land-use changes, fossil-fuel industry actors or those who rely on fossil fuels may prefer that, if changes are to be made, they be made by preventing deforestation or changing agricultural practices rather than by restricting fossil-fuel use.)

      The role of science, and scientists (discussed in chapter 2), may be more important to environmental issues than in many other issue areas because of the important role of uncertainty in the creation and resolution of environmental problems. But science and politics interact in complex ways. Even if relevant science is produced and successfully communicated, the political process can turn what appears to be a clear approach into a set of political compromises that undermine the original goal. And science will not save us from having to make political decisions – there is no one right solution to environmental problems, only tradeoffs among options with different advantages and disadvantages for varying groups of people.

      What most people focus on when they think about politics are the mechanisms by which these social decisions are made. This is where things such as the forms and processes of governments come in. Do democracies protect the environment better than authoritarian governments do? What effect do different types of governing bodies or the political process of elections have on environmental outcomes? Does the way that laws are created influence the character of rules or the way they are implemented or enforced? These questions are discussed in chapter 3.


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