Environmental Impact
Mass Politics, Globalisation, and Environmental Destruction: The Case of the North Pacific Fur Seal
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Miles Macallister
The near-extinction of the North Pacific Fur Seal at the turn of the twentieth century provides a window through which to examine themes of environmental protection in an era of mass politics. The United States, Britain, Canada, Japan, and Russia ultimately gathered in 1911 to create an international regulatory regime that protected fur seal stocks. The preceding twenty-five years of failed negotiations and political standoffs were shaped by governments that were grappling (some for the first time) with mass electorates who would not accept the loss of their profitable industries and who demanded that their statesmen leave negotiations as the 'victors'. The first era of globalisation also knitted together flows of commodities (seal skins) and capital in ways that made it difficult for negotiators to untangle their own 'national' interests from other countries. Escape was facilitated by, first, the use of an international institution (arbitration in 1893) to deflect blame from national governments, and second, by all the involved powers forming a collective, sustainable sealing regime in which profits were shared. This history, therefore, has intense relevance to our current moment in which the need to protect the environment is complicated by mass politics and globalisation.
Is China’s Belt and Road Initiative-led Environmental Policy Diffusion a Coercive Myth?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark(won min) Seo
Environmental policy diffusion/transfer led by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is, as incorporated in the CCP constitution, guided by the ideology of ‘ecological civilization.’ Does the myth of ‘ecological civilization’ and its policy application reflect the ‘corridor economies’’ policy process? What do coalitional dynamics of BRI’s transnational advocacy networks imply about the influence of the myth on inter-regional policy convergence/divergence? This research first delves into the metaphilosophical foundations for the myth of BRI’s ‘ecological civilization’ and its structural functionalist compatibility with liberal environmentalism in global governance. Then, it examines policy process of recipient economies’ BRI policy implementation by 1) providing semantic analysis of domestic/global public attitudes towards the concept of ‘ecological civilization’ 2) case studying how well BRI’s as well as Green Climate Fund(GCF)’s agendas reflect domestic/global public opinion on regional environmental standards enhancement. This research argues that BRI’s ‘ecological civilization’ is not structurally functional global governance discourse mainly because, compared to liberal environmentalism, 1)it is poorly legitimatized during the recipient economies’ policy process 2) the top-down nature of the coalitional dynamics of BRI’s transnational advocacy networks reveals that BRI-led policy diffusion is more of coercion than socio-cultural construction.
Effect of Crop Residual Burning on Air and Soil Quality in India
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kamaljeet Kaur
India Stands at the third position, as the producer of wheat and rice all over the globe, presently. On the other hand, even with this achievement, India also stands first amongst the world for polluting air due to burning of agricultural residuals. Haryana and Punjab alone contribute to 48 percent of total agriculture residual burning which leads to air being polluted with toxic gases like Carbon monoxide (CO), Organic Carbon (OC), Ammonia (NH3), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Particulate matter (PM2.5), Organic Compounds (VOCs) and Carbon dioxide (CO2). Burning of crop residuals not only pollutes the air quality but also degrades the soil parameters, which are very essential for crops. Stats revealed that 8.5 children out of 10,000 dies due to the bad air quality in India before the age of five per year. It observed over time that air quality degrades every successive year in northern India. One of the Major reasons for climate change is crop residual burning. This increasing trend of residual burning practice is somewhere related to farmers profit and environmental parameters of Haryana and Punjab. This paper contributes in the study which relate parameters like rainfall, temperature, and crop production with crop residual burning pattern. Data from the last twenty years has been used from various resources and analysed with latest machine learning algorithms and statistical tools.
Reframing Water Quality: Chesapeake Bay eNGOs and the Tactical Politics of Inspiration
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sya Kedzior
As the Chesapeake Bay Agreement prepares to celebrate its thirty-fifth year anniversary and some indicators begin to show improvements in Bay water quality, many regional environmental NGOs (eNGOs) are shifting strategies for public engagement and outreach. This paper presents the results of a study that examined the efforts of more than a dozen Chesapeake Bay area eNGOs and investigates how they differently frame, or present to the public, the issue of water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Particular attention is paid to the recent efforts by many organizations to “shift frames” relative to the roles played by local farmers and agricultural interests and to efforts to adopting inspirational framing by describing the movement to "Save the Bay" as a success. Findings draw upon data collected through archival research, participant observation at eNGO events, and interviews with eNGO program representatives. Discussion examines how geographic approaches to environmental social movement studies, particularly those that emphasize various actors’ efforts to reproduce environmental knowledge, can be informed by sociological approaches to frame analysis.
