Research Paper on Institutional Affiliation Environmental Protection

Introduction

Since the 1960s, environmental concerns have been on the rise in many countries all around the world. This was the time when Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" was published. This book spurred anxiety among Americans over the use of herbicides and insecticides, which were widely used in the country, as they were causing a lot of harm to the environment. Carson's work played an important role in regulating the chemical industry as well as in bringing more political awareness on environmental conservation. During this period environmental debate was more political and less rational, more than the previous times. Given the manner that environment affects humanity and vice versa, the debate on environmental protection has become a critical campaign issue in United States in recent years. In this analysis, we will explore the various challenges that strains the process of environmental protection and ways on how they could be addressed for the betterment of the ecosystem.

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How to Address Environmental Problems

Tragedy of the Commons

The approaches to environmental challenges may be viewed politically from three perspectives: one is the fact that the environment may be seen as a collective problem where paradoxes such as "tragedy of the commons" belie individual's rational behavior thus making cooperation difficult yet essential. The second perspective is that the description of the environmental debate with regards to the problem definition reveals the subtle ways which the redefinition of questions that concern the environment, politically, shifts the discussion into an arena that is more polarized as it is seen today. The third perspective concerns ways by which the ecosystem is considered in public opinion's realm (Adkin, 1994). As it is obvious, environmental challenges are enormous and they affect large groups of people which means that they require 'big' solutions. For instance, air pollution cannot be reduced by regulating one industry in an entire region, or the willingness of one motivated individual. In other words, air pollution could only be achieved if all involved parties cooperate towards the course. Also, the issue of climate change which is considered to pose the greatest threat to humanity could only be mitigated if there is international cooperation. Also, common resources, such as oceans and forests may be beneficial to humanity, given that they are free or at times may at minimum cost, but using these resources collectively will cost future generations dearly. This problem may be challenging to solve given that cost and benefit distribution varies both at the collective and individual levels in that the calculation of the cost-benefit in the individual level makes common resources' usage a decision that is considered rational since the costs accrue only at collective level (Adkin, 1994). Another reason why problems brought by use of common resources are difficult to solve is that cost and benefit distribution is in a way that the benefit are immediately realized whereas the cost are realized much later. This makes people underestimate the cost due to the benefits they are enjoying. Also, the tangible benefits gotten by from using these resources outweighs the costs to people. Environmental protection will require the use of common resources being regulated. This could be achieved by controlling individuals who access the resources, controlling how much access these individuals has and also by determining ways of distributing finite resource. Regulating the commons is essential since it restructures decision making processes by merging the collective and individual rationality.

Eco-Marxism

In general, addressing environmental issues requires new rules to be created which restructures and sustains incentives so as to benefit management of the common resources. In essence, basic incongruence among collective and individual rationality is the reason why tackling environmental problems is a bit challenging. Therefore, the main solution to problems of resource scarcity and pollution are; one, to create private property rights and two, to measure value based on market forces (Adkin, 1994). For instance, an individual can sue any party that pollutes the air in his own environment. Also, if a particular piece of land is more valuable due to its wilderness value compared to its timber value, environmental conservation agencies could buy the land to preserve it from timber extraction companies. Capitalism is another cause of environmental problems. In capitalism, individuals place profit-making over ecological or social goals given that capitalism is growth-oriented. Market liberals assume that the best way to protect natural environment is through privatization of these surroundings where in the real sense, these liberals contribute to environmental destructions as they exploit the natural environment which leads to "liquidity crises" (Connelly et.al, 2012). This makes these liberals to shift their focus to other areas where they could invest by trying to engineer the nature leading to depletion of resources ultimately leading to ecological degradation. Generally, capitalism cannot provide people with their necessities and has led to the destruction of cultural diversity as well as biodiversity. In order to address the challenges of capitalism, the kind of regulation needed should be in a position to reverse all the damage caused and allow for ecologically and socially sustainable society to exist in the environment. Another issue on environmental protection is that technocratic tools that are used to address environmental problems in policy alternative form are available. These alternatives include cap and trade, investment by the government in alternative methods as well as reducing subsidies into energies which are carbon intensive. Despite this progress, the main problem is that environmental challenges together with their concomitant solutions may appear to be easy to the community, but when viewed in the politics' realm they become unclear are no longer identifiable (Connelly et.al,2012). Under the circumstances, they are subject to a description with the best compelling narrative. The solution to this problem focuses on three vital themes; a fundamental level where environmental issues are view as common problems whereas environmental commons when located in accordance to individual interest in the short-run are at an inherent disadvantage.

Eco-Sentrism

However, in cases where environmental challenges threatens economic prosperity, Canadians are quick to ensure that they reshape their priorities. This means that environmental concerns are susceptible to being overpowered by issues with more tangible and immediate impacts. Also, the key issue of climate change should also be thoroughly examined where it was discovered that global warming is a concern that is not suitable for government intervention. This discovery was made after crafting the narrative that aimed at appealing short-run interest instead of collective interest as they described climate change to be natural in terms of its nature rather than being brought by human activity. The second theme on solving environmental problems is to ensure consciousness when advocating for environmental reforms particularly when defining the problems to be addressed. Appealing to eco-centrism and altruism may fail if competition comprises of short-run economic interest (Tietenberg, & Lewis, 2016).

This is because all the species in the ecosystems have an intrinsic value which is irreducible to values of the market. For this reason, it is necessary for humanity to cultivate a strong awareness and consciousness organic unity in the holistic ecological webs' nature where every human is enmeshed. Eco-centric view rejects the world's hierarchical view which assumes that the male gender should dominate nature. In its place, eco-centrism advocates for bio-centric equality principle as it rejects anthropocentrism by viewing species equally in terms of moral consideration. The third theme involves advocating for environmental reforms when there is economic prosperity in the country as these reforms are likely to meet less resistance during these times. In a nation with high commercial distress, general economic stagnation as well as, high unemployment rate may continue to restrain prioritization of a sustainable environment. Another approach aimed at conserving the ecosystem involves the perspectives of first nations on human-nature relationships.

Environmental Justice

Individuals from these nations have environmental knowledge which helps them to govern the use of the natural resources. Another way to achieve ecosystem's safety is by ensuring environmental justice (Walker, 2012). Due to this reason, there has been struggles among various environmental movements given that some groups of individuals, such as racist groups are much more affected when compared others. Under certain circumstances, racial groups are affected by hazardous waste and also suffers disproportionately from polluting industries, landfills and incinerators. The main groups that are affected by this kind of environmental racism are Native Americans and black Americans. White neighborhoods tend to contain resources which make them reject developments which they see as a threat to their quality of life and that are usually located from congested inner cities or industrialized areas.

Also, given the fact that environmental organizations are predominantly made up of whites and middle class, particularly in North America, these organizations have been criticized due to their failure of recognizing racial and class dimensions of health and environmental degradation (Dryzek, 2013). For these particular reasons, environmental justice movements, that are primarily aimed at opposing the racial and poor dimensions from being carried out, been formed. These movements seek to protect children from these communities from the risk of pollution. Environmental justice movements enables the racial communities to oppose operation of polluting industries in their environment thus playing a critical role in reducing ecological degradation. These movements also helps in reducing environmental racism thus boosting the attempts of overall environmental conservation.

Ecological Democracy

The other issue concerns ecological democracy where theorist have categorically stated that deeper forms of democracy must supersede liberal democracy, since the existing economic and political institutions are incapable of delivering both ecological sustainability and social justice. Also, it has been discovered that liberalization of the market as well as prioritization of global economic competitiveness have made governments incapable of precluding environment harms (Therivel Wilson, Heaney & Thompson, 2013). Additionally, most governments are more concerned with the short-term concerns, in terms of governments and political parties influenced by the electoral cycles, which distracts them from making a comprehensive yet long-term plan on how to solve the issue of climate change. Also, resources which are aimed to influence policy-making are distributed unequally most of the times which strains the process of environmental protection. This is mainly because of large organizations are having more representation and weight in the processes of decision making when compared to individual citizens. Some of the interest represented are marginalized systematically. Due to these reasons, democratic theorist proposed methods through which decision-making processes could be established by leveling the field to shape society's direction. These methods include; making sure that every party is equally represented in the decision-making table to consider all the interest involved, en...