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Proposed energy resource development in the arid western United
States raises a number of potential problems for an environment
that does not have a great deal of resiliency. Projected population
increases associated with large-scale development activities may go
beyond the capacity of small, isolated rural communities to absorb
them; and constraints on western agricultural and industrial
development-for example, demands for water already exceeding the
supply available-also limit energy development. The authors of this
wide-ranging book first evaluate western energy resources, then
objectively discuss the consequences of development on the region's
physical and social environments. Among the questions they consider
are: Who will reap the economic benefits of development, and who
will bear the environmental costs? What will be the effects on the
environment? The social structure? The quality of life? Are open
spaces a national treasure in their present form, or should they be
regarded as space available for development? What are the unique
demands of reclamation in the arid west? And, given the recent
trend of western states-rights militancy and shifts of population
to the southwest, what impact will new federal and state policies
have on resource management?
Proposed energy resource development in the arid western United
States raises a number of potential problems for an environment
that does not have a great deal of resiliency. Projected population
increases associated with large-scale development activities may go
beyond the capacity of small, isolated rural communities to absorb
them; and constraints on western agricultural and industrial
development-for example, demands for water already exceeding the
supply available-also limit energy development. The authors of this
wide-ranging book first evaluate western energy resources, then
objectively discuss the consequences of development on the region's
physical and social environments. Among the questions they consider
are: Who will reap the economic benefits of development, and who
will bear the environmental costs? What will be the effects on the
environment? The social structure? The quality of life? Are open
spaces a national treasure in their present form, or should they be
regarded as space available for development? What are the unique
demands of reclamation in the arid west? And, given the recent
trend of western states-rights militancy and shifts of population
to the southwest, what impact will new federal and state policies
have on resource management?
Around the time of the first "Earth Day," on April 22, 1970, the
academic world joined in a virtual explosion of societal interest
in a topic that inherently lies in the confluence between "social
problems" and "public policy" -- the ways in which humans use and
abuse the natural environment. In the worlds of social movement
organizations and policy, that newfound interest showed up in
dramatic growth of environmental organizations and a stream of
powerful new environmental laws. In the academic world, echoes of
the explosion showed up in equally dramatic growth of
interdisciplinary "environmental" programs with an explicit focus
on the fact that "environmental problems" are inherently social
problems as well.
Over the past decade, a growing body of research has shown that
equity issues need to receive greater attention in academia -- not
just among activists, and not just as the focus of courses on
environmental ethics, but as topics that deserve careful academic
study and that in many ways are at the core of what we call
"environmental" problems. As David Orr (1992) noted, "the symptoms
of environmental deterioration are in the domain of the natural
sciences, but the causes lie in the realm of the social sciences
and humanities."
This volume is intended to call this research to attention, but
also to encourage its further expansion; far from being the kind of
topic that ought to be relegated to a small pigeonhole, issues of
equity and inequality deserve to be absolutely central to the study
of connections between humans and the habitat that we share with
all other life on earth.
Research in Social Problems and Public Policy is now available
online at ScienceDirectfull-text online from volume 8 onwards.
* This volume brings together the leading research on equity and
the environment
* Contributions from academics and researchers in the field.
For a long time in industrialized countries the state occupied a
comfortable and unquestioned position in dealing with environmental
problems. Since the 1960s we have witnessed the rather smooth
institutionalization of environmental tasks in state policies and
politics, leading to the emergence of the "environmental state". In
the 1980s, the ideologies of deregulation and privatization formed
the start of the debate on the environmental state and the 1990s
left the debate facing new challenges. First, the debate became
broader and more sophisticated, moving away from simple
deregulation and privatization arguments and toward the issue of
political modernization and reinventing government. Second, in
addition to the ongoing debate on the environmental state within
national boundaries, the processes of and political debates on
globalization led to new challenges in the viability of the
(nationally ordered) environmental-regulatory state. Third, the
debate widened geographically, from Europe and the North American
continent to the central and East-European countries undergoing
transition away from centrally planned economies with
all-dominating states, and to states in the so-called South.
Various analytical frameworks and social theories are now being
applied to understanding and evaluating the nature of these social
processes, transformations and continuities related to the
environmental state. This text provides a thorough examination of
these issues with particular emphasis on the
treadmill-of-production and the ecological modernization
perspectives. The volume draws upon case studies and evidence from
environmental states in the North American continent, Western
Europe, Africa, Southeast and East Asia and Central and Eastern
Europe.
The terror attacks of 9.11 signalled that people are increasingly
put at risk of not only terrorism but natural and technological
disasters as well. Since 9.11 scholars have been asking new
questions about catastrophe and made important and interesting
innovations in methods, concepts, and theories regarding disaster
and terror. This volume brings together a creative set of papers,
most of which are about the 9.11 attacks. They draw from several
disciplines to address key questions: what lessons does the
response to the collapse of the World Trade Center have for
disaster planning? what has 9.11 meant for civil liberties in the
US? how will survivors react over the long run? and how do we
conceptualize panic and mass response?
From the de-institutionalization of psychiatric hospitals to the
privatization of prisons, the dramatic public policy changes of the
last three decades have been, to a large extent, changes in
organization. The chapters in this volume examine these
organizational changes. We learn how organizations shift
strategies, create alliances, cross boundaries and react to
incentives as they respond to changing environmental pressures. We
learn about the complex relationships between organizations and
their clients and how these relations can be altered in response to
environmental change. Chapters in the first section focus primarily
on inter-organizational relations among health care and community
development organizations. Chapters in the second section focus
primarily on relations between organizations and their clients,
both in medical organizations and in the criminal justice system.
Research in Social Problems and Public Policy (RSPPP) is a
peer-reviewed series devoted to the sharpening and reshaping of
scientific discourse involving the intersection of social problems
and public policy. In particular, it is interested in the analysis
of the potential failure of public institutions to fulfil their
obligations to the broader society. Multidisciplinary in nature,
Research in Social Problems and Public Policy presents important
themes of: social/crime problems and their treatment; criminal
justice; law and public policy; crime, deviance and social control;
courts and diversion programs; therapeutic jurisprudence,
restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution; law and
society; substance use/abuse and treatment; health and society; and
institutional interaction. The articles have a clear connection to
the series' main focus, lying at the confluence of social problems
and public policy. The series emphasises the need to consider the
organisationally - and institutionally - specific features,
competencies and decision-making practices of social problems,
whilst also providing a useful mix of theoretical, methodological,
substantive and public policy issues. Additionally, it aids the
establishment of working networks of academics and practitioners
from across the globe.
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