Politics and the Environment Risk and the Role of Government and Industry

About this book

From the publisher's announcement:

A balanced and accessibly written undergraduate text suitable for courses in environmental studies, political science and geography. It offers an overview of the key issues in environmental policy, particularly through a comparison of the UK, USA and Australia. Howes outlines how governments have responded to environmental risk through policy, and the ongoing tensions between science, industry, the state, social movements and electoral politics. He examines the key environmental issues and the claims of envirosceptics such as Bjorn Lomborg and offers a new strategy for making major administrative decisions in the face of uncertainty. In a clear manner he shows how to use Beck, Foucault and Dryzek to analyse environmental policy and he develops a new method for measuring the effectiveness of environmental governance.

Contents

Introduction; Section A: What's the Problem? The Nature of Risk and Uncertainty; The Origins of Risk and Modern Governance; Section B: How Has Government Responded? National Environment Protection Institutions; Restrictions, Regulations and Economic Incentives; Knowledge, Environmental Assessment and Pollution Inventories; Sustainable Development in the UN and Australia; Sustainable Development in the USA and UK; Section C: Has It Worked? Has Government Intervention Worked? Has Industry Changed the Way it Operates? Conclusions: Greening Democracy? References, Bibliography, Index

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Biography

Michael Howes is a lecturer in environmental policy and regulation at the Australian School of Environmental Studies, Griffith University, Australia. Previously Howes worked as an industrial chemist and technical manager in the manufacturing sector and for several NGOs