Recent Publications

Carbon stewardship: land management decisions and the potential for carbon sequestration in Colorado, USA

by Elisabeth L Failey and Lisa Dilling Environ. Res. Lett. 5 (2010) 024005 (7pp) [pdf]

Abstract: Land use and its role in reducing greenhouse gases is a key element of policy negotiations to address climate change. Calculations of the potential for enhanced terrestrial sequestration have largely focused on the technical characteristics of carbon stocks, such as vegetation type and management regime, and to some degree, on economic incentives. However, the actual potential for carbon sequestration critically depends on who owns the land and additional land management decision drivers. US land ownership patterns are complex, and consequently land use decision making is driven by a variety of economic, social and policy incentives. These patterns and incentives make up the ‘carbon stewardship landscape’—that is, the decision making context for carbon sequestration. We examine the carbon stewardship landscape in the US state of Colorado across several public and private ownership categories. Achieving the full potential for land use management to help mitigate carbon emissions requires not only technical feasibility and financial incentives, but also effective implementing mechanisms within a suite of often conflicting and hard to quantify factors such as multiple-use mandates, historical precedents, and non-monetary decision drivers. (read more ...)

Geoengineering, Ocean Fertilization, and the Problem of Permissible Pollution

by Benjamin Hale and Lisa Dilling Science, Technology & Human Values (2010) August 3 doi:10.1177/0162243910366150 [pdf]

Abstract: Many geoengineering projects have been proposed to address climate change, including both solar radiation management and carbon removal techniques. Some of these methods would introduce additional compounds into the atmosphere or the ocean. This poses a difficult conundrum: Is it permissible to remediate one pollutant by introducing a second pollutant into a system that has already been damaged, threatened, or altered? We frame this conundrum as the “Problem of Permissible Pollution.” In this paper, we explore this problem by taking up ocean fertilization and advancing an argument that rests on three moral claims. We first observe that pollution is, in many respects, a context-dependent matter. This observation leads us to argue for a “justifiability criterion.” Second, we suggest that remediating actions must take into account the antecedent conditions that have given rise to their consideration. We call this second observation the “antecedent conditions criterion.” Finally, we observe that ocean fertilization, and other related geoengineering technologies, propose not strictly to clean up carbon emissions, but actually to move the universe to some future, unknown state. Given the introduced criteria, we impose a “future-state constraint”. We conclude that ocean fertilization is not an acceptable solution for mitigating climate change. In attempting to shift the universe to a future state (a) geoengineering sidelines consideration of the antecedent conditions that have given rise to it --conditions, we note, that in many cases involve unjustified carbon emissions --and (b) it must appeal to an impossibly large set of affected parties. (read more ...)

Respecting Autonomy in Population Policy: An Argument for International Family Planning Programs

by Benjamin S. Hale and Lauren Hale Public Health Ethics (2010) May 17 [pdf]

Abstract: This paper addresses whether universal, general education programs are enough to satisfy basic criteria of human rights or whether comprehensive family planning programs, in conjunction with universal education programs, might also be morally required. Even before the Reagan administration instituted the ‘global gag rule’ at the 1984 conference in Mexico City, prohibiting funding to nongovernmental organizations that included providing information about abortion as a possible method of family planning, the moral acceptability of family planning programs has been called into question. This paper makes a moral argument for family planning by appealing to both data and theory: data about the efficacy of universal and comprehensive family planning education programs at reducing fertility and infant mortality and theory about what is required for the establishment of autonomy. It reasons that universal educational programs are insufficient for the promotion of autonomy and, therefore, argues on substantive autonomy grounds for comprehensive family planning programs in addition to universal education programs. (read more ...)

In Retrospect: Science - The Endless Frontier

by Roger Pielke, Jr. Nature Vol. 466 (2010) doi: 10.1038/466922a [pdf]

Excerpt: The US government's landmark report Science - The Endless Frontier was published 65 years ago last month. Commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and prepared by electrical engineer Vannevar Bush, who directed US government research during the Second World War, the document distilled the lessons of wartime into proposals for subsequent federal support of science. Although its bold recommendations were only partly implemented, the document is ripe for reappraisal today: it marked the beginning of modern science policy.

Bush's report called for a centralized approach to government-sponsored science, largely shielded from political accountability. The creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950, a small agency with a limited mandate, was far from the sweeping reform set out in the 30-page report and its appendices. However, its publication ushered in a new era in which science was viewed as vital for progress towards national goals in health, defense and the economy. Government funding for research and development consequently increased by more than a factor of ten from the 1940s to the 1960s.

The influence of Science -The Endless Frontier stems largely from its timing, coming at the tail end of a war in which science-based technology had been crucial. The development of the atomic bomb, radar and penicillin meant that Bush's declaration that “scientific progress is essential” to public welfare found a receptive audience. Bush also adopted innovative language that capitalized on this new-found government credulity. (read more ...)

Sport: An Academic’s Perfect Laboratory

by Roger A. Pielke, Jr. Bridges vol. 26 (2010) July [read article]

Excerpt: Big sporting events tend to bring out the armchair social scientists. For instance, when Europe advanced only three teams to the quarterfinals of this year's World Cup it was hailed by some as an indication of the decline in Europe's geopolitical standing role, to the benefit of South America. That theory lasted only about as long as it took for Argentina and Brazil to fly home after losing to rivals from Old Europe. Similarly, Gideon Rachmon of the Financial Times points to the columnist in Spain's El País who suggested that "England's loss to Germany over the weekend reflects Thatcherism's demoralising effects on the English proletariat. (And there was I, thinking that it had something to do with lumbering centre-backs and a disallowed goal.)"

As much fun as it is to poke fun at sports-infused pseudo-social science, there is actually much of value to be gleaned from sports for understanding human behavior and important societal questions. (read more ...)