The actors, regulations, and
initiatives we have addressed in previous blog posts all play
important roles in mitigating and adapting to climate change in
Wisconsin. While they have different levels of strength, they each
contribute to solving this problem.
I believe that the Clean Air Act (CAA)
has the most potential for mitigating climate change. Under rules
imposed by the CAA, greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to decline
by billions of metric tons. Under the CAA, the EPA is able to
enforce rules that will actively fight emissions that cause climate
change. If the EPA can keep these regulations enforced and
potentially introduce more regulations, I think it will be the
driving force behind the fighting of climate change in the United
States. While not as powerful as the CAA, the Wisconsin Initiative
on Climate Change Impacts (WICCI) is one of the most important
organizations in Wisconsin focusing on climate change. With a
network of scientists, decision makers, and citizens, WICCI works to
assess and anticipate climate change impacts on Wisconsin and then
recommend adaptation strategies for these impacts. While the
organization is limited by the fact that it does not have any
official governmental power, it does have the power to inform
citizens and policy makers about climate change, which could lead to
government action. Even though WICCI doesn't make rules, it is
socially important as it gets communities to act on climate change.
Action must be taken to avoid potential problems listed in this short video on climate change in Wisconsin
In our textbook, Evans gives the
hypothesis that 'networks and markets are the best thing that we
have.' In the situation of climate change, I disagree. If not for
laws and regulations, I think a large amount of greenhouse gas
emissions would largely go unchecked. While citizens may have wanted
cleaner air, industries might not have wanted to adapt to this.
Regulations force these industries into action, which is a big help
for this problem. Evans also states that 'Duality of structure is
critical' and that to achieve widespread change, networks need to be
empowered to act in order to address common goals. I believe this is
true, if many networks on the smaller scale act together in achieving
a common goal, they will create a larger effect. As seen throughout
our posts, there are many actors and networks in Wisconsin trying to
mitigate or adapt to climate change, each in their own way.
Individually, they make relatively little impact on the situation,
but as an entire network of fighting climate change they are a huge
force. This can be scaled up even further with the CAA. Other
nations may see how effective the CAA can be and may possibly adopt
similar strategies in the fight against climate change. I agree with Evans saying 'Governance
is about learning.' whether it be initiatives and regulations that
work, or markets that fail, we should always be learning on what has
or has not worked for us. With this knowledge, future action can be
better tailored to the problem at hand and with less and less failures
over time, the world will gain a
stronger understanding of how to deal with climate change.
Hi Andy,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great critical summary of your blog. I definitely agree that governmental rules and regulations are a must when dealing with a market that functions solely on a "race to the bottom" mentality--cutting costs and enhancing efficiency regardless of the environmental implications. I also enjoy how you touch on the importance of collective power (via the WICCI).
However your post also made me wonder, what if the governmental regulations are not applicable to the context of a specific geographical region? For example, I contributed to a blog on protecting Wisconsin's Wetlands and preventing their disappearance. In my research of the policy and regulations of wetlands, I found that the government (EPA) controlled "Nationwide Permits" through the Clean Water Act since 1948. However, in the early 1980s Wisconsin legislators spoke up to point out that permits were being issued to corporations and governmental bodies that were building on land regardless of local conditions, community opinions, and surrounding financial well-being. For this reason, the control of wetland permits was placed into the hands of Wisconsin governing bodies (the first state-led wetland water quality standards). Although this permit-revising power eventually made it into the hands of the Wisconsin DNR, this example seems to argue that collective interaction with governmental regulation can and should be used to produce a more accurate mitigation approach. True, the ideas coming from Washington are impressively able to highlight main issues and strategy approaches to the issues that we are facing nationally and globally. However, I also strongly believe that collective initiatives of scientists, private decision makers, and citizens are critical in influencing and informing these governmental decisions.
So, in sum, I definitely agree that climate change should be approached through a combination of networks, markets, and regulations—forming level grounds for learning across all levels of social input. This actually turned out to be the conclusion I made in my final post too! I guess the question remaining now is: But what does this look like and what does this translate to?
Have we achieved a level approach to mitigating climate change yet? In either case, how can we improve this approach?
I feel whoever steps up with the “best answer considering” to this question (whether nation or corporation) will play a key role in our future global environmental governance.
Here's a link to our Wetlands blog!
http://wiscowetlandchallenges.blogspot.com/