The ReBirth of Environmentalism as Pragmatic, Adaptive Management

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The Re-Birth of Environmentalism as Pragmatic,
Adaptive Management

• Bryan G. Norton
• Professor, School of Public Policy
• Georgia Institute of Technology

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http//www.ran.org/ed/LongLiveEnviro.html
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Are we attending a funeral?

• We have become convinced that modern
  environmentalism, with all of its unexamined
  assumptions, outdated concepts and exhausted
  strategies, must die so that something new can
  live.
• Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. The Death
  of Environmentalism Global warming politics in a
  post-environmental world. Released at an October
  2004 meeting of the Environmental Grantmakers
  Association.

http//www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-
intro/
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Perhaps its time for an autopsy?

• In my autopsy, I found that Shellenberger and
  Nordhaus may have mis-identified the corpse.
• I hope that environmentalism, if it means
  protecting our natural landmarks, biological
  diversity, and systems productive of vital
  resources is not dead.
• What really needs a funeral is ideological
  environmentalism.

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My purpose Outline the new Age, by celebrating
the re-birth of environmental concern as a
commitment to learning by doing.

• Brief overview of environmental ethics
• Look at the bigger picture in resource evaluation
• Propose a New Approach to evaluating human
  impacts on environment and resources

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The discussion of environmental values has,
since the 1970s, been polarized across the
disciplinary divide

• Environmental Ethics.
• vs.
• Environmental Economics
• Big-Picture Look at a New Approach to
  Environmental Ethics
• if developed in a certain way, the ideas of
  adaptive management can provide a way out
  of the quandary about valuation.

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The Great Debate

• Environmental Ethicists
• Believe that most (or at least many)
  environmental problems are irreducibly moral
  problems
• Often appeal to "non-anthropocentric" values
• Deny that economic calculations can capture the
  essential moral aspects of environmental problems
• Environmental Economists
• Believe that all or most environmental values can
  be measured in economic terms
• Reduce" moral values to "existence" values and
  consumer preferences, measured as "willingness to
  pay" (wtp), to protect a moral value (CV / Shadow
  Prices)
• Treat all environmental goods as "commodities"
  that can be assigned a price

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They differ ontologically

• Economists attribute value to only humans, and
  believe human preferences determine value
• Most Environmental Ethicists believe natural
  objects deserve moral consideration, and that
  many of our actions should be based on moral
  principle

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This difference corresponds to another divide

• Those who favor Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) as
  the central methodology of environmental decision
  making (Gifford Pinchot)
• Those who believe environmental goals should be
  set by political means, which includes a public
  debate about aesthetic and moral values,
  including "non-instrumental" value (John Muir)

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I call these two approaches

• CHUNK-AND-COUNT
• and
• CHUNK-AND-SORT

Intrinsically valued
Instrumentally valued
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Shared assumptions about how to evaluate
environmental change

• These two theories of environmental share two
  related assumptions
• Nature can be discretized (chunked) and
• Some of these discrete chunks have, while others
  lack, moral "standing" (sorted)
• They sort objects differently
• Economists give standing to humans only
• Ethicists count other elements of nature (chunks)
  as having standing as well.

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The end of chunking

• I propose to reject their common assumptionthat
  the values in nature and in resources can be
  chunked. This rejection undercuts the whole
  debate by making the question Which things are
  morally considerable moot. We do not have to
  answer it in order to evaluate environmental
  change.
• This opens the way for a new approach to
  evaluation
• Evaluating various "development paths," according
  to multiple criteria

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The new approach in a nutshell

• Aldo Leopold
• Thinking Like a Mountain
• a multi-scalar approach to environmental
  management
• The first adaptive manager

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Definition of Adaptive Management

• Experimentalism
• AMs respond to uncertainty by undertaking
  reversible actions and studying outcomes to
  reduce uncertainty at the next decision point
• Multi-Scalar Modeling
• AMs model environmental problems within
  multi-scaled (hierarchical) space-time systems
• Place-Orientation
• AMs address environmental problems from a
  place embedded in local natural and political
  contexts

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Environmental Pragmatism1

• Pragmatists do not try to artificially separate
  descriptive and prescriptive accounts
• They evaluate actions and processes, not chunks
• 1 Andrew Light and Eric Katz, Environmental
  Pragmatism, Eds., 1996

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Re-thinking Environmental Problems The Problem
of Problem formulation

• Chunk-and-Count and Chunk-and-Sort falsely assume
  environmental problems are well defined problems.
  . .
• . . . but they are Wicked Problems

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Wicked problems

• Rittel and Webber1 distinguish between benign
  and wicked policy problems
• Benign problems have determinate answers
• Wicked problems no determinate solution
• No agreement upon problem formulation
• Perceived differently by different interest
  groups
• Resolution temporary balance among competing
  interests and social goals
• As society addresses one set of symptoms, new
  symptoms emerge
• Environmental problems are wicked problems

1Rittel, H. W. J. and M. M Webber. 1973.
Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,
Policy Sciences 4 155-169.
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A new approach to evaluating changes in human
dominated systems

• Environmental management takes place within
  systems embedded in larger and larger and
  progressively slower changing super-systems
• Each generation is concerned for its short-term
  well-being, but also must be concerned to leave a
  viable range of choices for subsequent
  generations
• Adaptation embodies at least two scales of time

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Temporal aspects of wicked problems

• One aspect of wicked problems is temporal
  open-endedness.
• This requires that we choose a temporal horizon
  over which we characterize a problem.
• Hierarchy theory a theory by ecologists used to
  organize spatio-temporal relationships in
  complex, dynamic systems.

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Axioms of Hierarchy Theory

• A system is conceived as composed of nested
  subsystems, such that any subsystem is smaller
  (by at least one order of magnitude) than the
  system of which it is a component
• All observations of a system are taken from a
  particular perspective within the physical
  hierarchy
• (ii) All observations and evaluations are taken
  from a particular perspective within the physical
  hierarchy

• THIS MAKES EVALUATION ENDOGENOUS TO THE
• MANAGEMENT DISCOURSE

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A Hierarchical Model of Resource Use
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The Challenge

• For communities to determinein a process of
  deliberationwhich opportunities are important to
  save.

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Schematic definition of sustainability

• Generation G1 is living sustainably over a given
  time horizon if and only if they fulfill their
  needs without reducing the ratio of opportunities
  to constraints as faced by Generation G2, G3. . .
  GN.

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Elements of a process approach

• Development pathways
• Scenarios
• Back-casting
• Multiple criteria

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Pluralism
a continuum

• PLURALISM We accept that citizens in diverse
  democratic societies value nature
• in multiple ways
• and over multiple scales

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Multi-Criteria Analysis

• We avoid the Dilemma of the Chunkers by
  evaluating DEVELOPMENT PATHS
• WITHIN AN OPEN AND DELIBERATIVE PUBLIC POLICY
  PROCESS
• ACCORDING TO MULTIPLE CRITERIA
• The evaluation process is driven by a
  community-based discussion of which ENVIRONMENTAL
  INDICATORS will be monitored and measured
• Community values will be expressed as arguments
  that a given indicator is important to social
  values

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An Example Some criteria for growth in Atlanta

• Economic indicators (job growth)
• Smart Growth Indicators percentage of land
  surfaces that remain pervious
• Regional Indicators maintenance of traditional
  forest cover/natural history

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Goal-Setting process now involves a public debate
about three questions

• What indicators should we track?
• What management goals should we set with respect
  to the chosen indicators?
• How should we weight the various criteria?

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What we need policies that can contribute to
social goals at multiple levels

• These policies should have positive impacts
• Economically
• Ecologically
• Globally

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A 6-Filter Evaluation Model for effective
policies
Welfare Filter
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Conclusion An Adaptive Approach to Valuing
and Managing Environmental Change

• Make evaluation endogenous to Adaptive management
  
• Evaluate changes to processes, not entities
  (Development Paths)
• Develop multiple indicators associated with
  social values
• Apply multiple criteria (can be associated with
  multiple scales, horizons, and dynamics)

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