PS177 Final - ps 177 PDF

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Olivia Yazzolino PS 177 Final 1/5/17 Professor Mildenberger 1. While Trudeau has a point that China’s authoritarian government may have an easier time implementing climate policy, Chinese government will actually only support environmental regulations when they are in the government’s best interest. Of course, authoritarian governments can become green without having to go through checks and balances, a vote of no confidence, or other democratic methods of balancing executive power. However, they also have the ability to repress environmental movements and keep the public from organizing, as China has done through censorship and some intolerance of criticism of the national government. In democratic countries, the executive leader may not be able to create climate change policy as quickly and with as few restrictions as in an authoritarian country, but climate movements will always exists and make significant changes because a democratic government cannot censor or repress public organization. Furthur,

authoritarian governments that quickly “go green” are not always really green. They must do what is in their own best interest to not get overthrown, so they often greenwash or practice the political pollution cycle, promoting economic growth and leaving the environmental costs for the next leader to deal with. In a democracy like America, climate change policy may not be prioritized when certain parties or leaders are in power, but it is always supported through the power of the people, which can make the most difference overall. 3. Some scholars believe the tragedy of the commons can be solved through the installment of a centralized authority because a centralized authority can protect the commons by determining who gets to use the resources and how much they get to be used, rather than the commons being a public good that is exploited by everyone trying to get their fair share. The example used to represent this concept is Hobbes’ Leviathan, which supports the idea of an absolute ruler who controls society diving up resources equally. However, there are other solutions to the tragedy of the commons such as privatization, which encourages people to take

care of the land because it is their own land, not a public good. Privatization gives people incentive to cultivate and reuse rather than exploit resources and establishes a sense of responsibility. One example of sustainable privatization is the Individual Transferrable Quota, an idea used by fisheries where fisherman have a limited amount of fish they can catch, but they can sell or inherit these quotas. Another solution presented by Elinor Ostram is the use of institutions, which structure a society’s behavior by aligning individual interests with the interest of the community, such as the institutional system lobster fisherman use to keep lobster populations healthy by not harvesting lobsters with notched tails. These solutions encourage individuals to think about the long term rather than how much of a resource they can extract before it disappears. 4. The environmental movement in Country A will not always be more successful in making changes than Country B because environmental movements that are actively included in government are funded and endorsed by the government and therefore must do what the governments wants it to do. For example, Norway’s environmental

movements are so bought into the government that they have to work with carbon and electricity industries. In countries that actively exclude environmental movements, those movements are free to demonstrate against whatever they see fit, and are not “owned” by the government. These types of movements can be much more effective in creating change because they are under no restrictions. However, Country A may still be successful some of the time because it is much harder to find funding for Country B, and County A will make milder changes that face less opposition. Country A will not ever make as much radical change as Country B could, however, because Country A must shape problem definitions to fit the interest of the government it belongs to. 5. Although it seems that climate skeptics and environmentalists are divided along party lines, it turns out that this is not the case. It is commonly believed that conservatives do not believe in climate change and liberals do, but historically, there has been much crossover between parties and along the spectrum of how threatening climate change is. The issue of climate skepticism is actually an ideational conflict, not a party

conflict. People either believe global warming is a real threat or they don’t regardless of their party alignment. For example, John McCain of the Republican party in America was supported pro-climate policy, but Joe Liberman, a Democratic party representative at the time, opposed climate policy. In Australia, Malcom Turnbell of the Republican Party was pro-climate, while Tony Abott, a Democrat, was a climate skeptic, and even lead the Liberal party against a carbon tax and repealed a carbon permit law in 2012. In fact, climate policy is more often an economic issue than a party issue. Economic losers of climate policy will shape the problem definition to make climate change seem minimal. Climate skepticism is not about political party loyalty but instead about priorities. The most surprising and interesting thing I learned in this class was that active exclusion actually allowed climate change movements and organizations to mobilize better than active inclusion. I had always believed that having a spot at the table would make climate movements

more visible and never considered that they could be “bought in” to the government’s agenda....