Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:55:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:05:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Este trabalho tem como objetivo refletir sobre ações que possam contribuir na criação de mecanismos de defesa para o meio ambiente no processo de desenvolvimento de projetos de pesquisa em Instituições de Pesquisa, especificamente, o Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares IPEN. Para tanto, parte de valores éticos aplicados ao processo de desenvolvimento científico durante os períodos antigo, medieval e moderno, desvendando a cisão dos princípios éticos na natureza, bem como percorrendo o caminho da criação dos códigos de ética em pesquisa. Além disso, apresenta critérios que possibilitam preservar o meio ambiente durante a execução de projetos de pesquisa, por intermédio de diretrizes que contribuirão na elaboração de um código de ética ambiental. / Dissertação (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP

Certain prominent environmental theorists have accounted for and/or addressed our unmitigated environmentally damaging behavior in cognitive terms, related to a common (misplaced) belief that economic development and technological advancement, among other contemporary processes, will solve our environmental problems. However, I argue that they have not given due consideration to the complex (predominantly non-cognitive/non-conscious) discursive constitution of the individual, and thus seem to adhere to a Kantian notion of autonomy that overlooks such non-cognitive factors. Focusing on this non-cognitive aspect of discursive constitution, I ascribe our ecological apathy mainly to the fact that we have been discursively constituted as docile bodies and prostrate subjects. Further, I argue that, because this process of discursive constitution is primarily non-cognitive, any attempts to remedy our ecological apathy at a cognitive level alone will not be completely effective. Consequently, I propose that a more effective way of fostering pro-environmental dispositions may be for individuals to engage in an ethic/culture of the self that is not exclusively conceptual in orientation, and which is centered on the practice of a counter-discourse that does not constitute the individual as docile and prostrate nor negate the individual’s dependence on the environment. Alternatively, in order to engender pro-environmental civilizational change, it may be necessary to operate within the discursive parameters of dominant/popular institutions, in order to incrementally alter the discourses employed within, and disseminated through, these institutions, in a manner that would lead to the problematization, rather than the endorsement, of the ecologically deleterious technological, political and economic trajectories of our time.

Climate change emerged as a topic of public and political concern in the 1980s alongside the discovery of the ‘Antarctic Ozone Hole.’ The issue was raised up the political agenda in the latter half of the 1980s by scientists and international administrators operating in a transnational setting –culminating in the eventual formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. Created to produce a comprehensive assessment of the science, impacts and possible response strategies to climate change, the Panel managed to bridge to the two worlds of science and politics as a hybrid science-policy organisation, meeting the divergent needs of a variety of groups, specifically in the US Government. This thesis will provide an analysis of the negotiations that resulted in the formation of the IPCC in 1988. In particular, I examine the power politics of knowledge production in the relationship between a transnational set of scientists engaged in assessments of climate change and national policymakers. I argue that the IPCC was established as a means of controlling who could speak for the climate, when and how, and as such the Panel legitimised and privileged certain voices at the expense of others. In addition to tracing and examining the history of international climate change assessments in the 1980s, I will scrutinise how the issue became a topic of international political concern. Focusing on the negotiations between the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United States of America in the formation of the IPCC, I will argue against the received view that the U.S. has consistently been in a battle with climate science and the IPCC. As I will show that the U.S. government was both integral to the decision to establish the IPCC and also one of its strongest backers. Following the formation of the Panel I examine the ad hoc decisions taken and processes adopted during the First Assessment (AR1) that contributed to the anchoring of the IPCC as the central authority on climate related knowledge. As such I show that in the absence of any formal procedural guidance there was considerable leeway for the scientists and Working Group Chairs to control and shape the content of the assessment. Finally, I analyse the ways in which U.S. and UK policymakers strategically engaged with the Panel. Significantly, I show that the ways in which the U.S. pushed all political debates to the heart of the scientific assessment imparted a linear approach to policymaking –assessment precedes and leads the policymaking –contributing to the increasing entanglement of the science and politics of climate change. Moreover, the narrow technical framing of the issue and the largely tokenistic attempts to involve participants from developing countries in the IPCC resulted in the UN resolutions (backed by developing countries) establishing the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee/United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (INC/UNFCC) contrary to the wishes of U.S. policymakers.

The realist tradition in world politics has long been heralded by statesmen and scholars alike as offering an authentic account of the relations between states. Realists consider self-interest, anarchy, and power politics to guide the behavior of states in the international system. The perception that cooperation and amity are now the norm in the international system has raised the possibility of a theoretical shift of focus in the study of international politics. At present, scholars within the discipline of international politics are debating the relevance of realist thought. In particular, neorealism, or the structural variation of traditional realism, is under attack for not providing a rationale for international cooperation. This project undertakes to expand neorealism's ability to explain state behavior in the area of environmental cooperation. Employing the notion of anarchy as a self-help system, it shall be demonstrated that international environmental agreements appear to be influenced by the distribution of power in the international system. Anarchy mandates the need for state actors to cooperate on certain environmental issues, while that same system dissuades cooperation on a number of other important environmental matters. This thesis critiques the theoretical principles in neorealism and makes moderate changes to them. In keeping with neorealist thought, power, the interests of important states, and the position of the hegemon are considered important factors in understanding environmental cooperation. This project also studies three global environmental issues that provide insight into the rewards and limitations of using neorealism to explain cooperation.

While designed and adopted at the federal level, the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Clean Water Act (CWA) rely on states for implementation. The result of this implementation framework is a disparity in environmental conditions across the nation. The objective of this research is to examine how the implementation stage of the policy process affects program outcomes. The findings indicate that the primary means of shaping program outcomes are the decision-making criterion and subsequent behavior of implementing officials, where their value based actions dictate service delivery. These decisions are, in turn, shaped by the context of the work, where organizations and the socio-political environment influence the basis for decision-making. These findings connect broader organizational and socio-political factors with program outcomes through an indirect relationship, rather than assume a direct relationship as previous authors have done. The findings explain a significant portion of the variance in both air and water program outcomes across the nation. This research indicates the importance of front-line operators in the implementation process, an issue that has been left-out of other work. These conclusions can be used to enhance performance management by practitioners, through a greater understanding of how organizations and individuals affect program outcomes. Finally, the theoretical framework and methodological techniques suggest that previous implementation research has failed to properly specify statistical models, which enhances the literature on the subject.

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A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2019 / The Miombo woodlands are “disturbance driven savannas”, where people, elephants and fire prevent canopy closure and maintain tree-grass coexistence. Since the end of the 18th century, the woodlands have undergone dramatic changes to their disturbance regimes, through increases in human and decreases in elephant populations. This has resulted in a high concentration of human-driven disturbances in some areas of the woodlands and low disturbances in other areas. Consequently, in the areas affected by humans, there are high levels of biomass loss, while other areas experience woody plant encroachment. The ecological impacts of humans and elephants are comparable, but there are important differences. Although both remove woody biomass, they might impact vegetation composition and structure differently. The aim of this study was to investigate whether people can perform a similar functional role to elephants, with regards to biomass removal and potential changes to savanna structure and composition. Aboveground woody biomass estimates were obtained from Synthetic Aperture Radar backscatter and used to (1) compare biomass change at different levels of human (2010 human population density) and elephant influence (2009 Niassa elephant density); and (2) identify how the intensity of biomass loss differs for humans and historical elephant densities (1.4 elephants/km2) under different rainfall and initial biomass conditions. Biomass change was calculated between 2007 and 2010 and compared across equal areas inside and outside of Niassa National Reserve. For human influence, a regional analysis was also done. Published estimates of past elephant densities without poaching for Niassa National Reserve were used as the historical elephant density. Biomass loss increases with population density, for both people and elephants. However, rainfall responses show opposite patterns: biomass loss decreases with rainfall within Niassa National Reserve (under elephant influence) but increases outside of protected areas (under human influence). Under more mesic conditions, humans tend to remove more biomass than elephants. This suggests that woodlands with low rainfall and low human influence have more trees and higher biomass than if elephants were still present at their historical densities, and that some harvesting by people may be beneficial. People and elephants both remove woody biomass; however, they do not necessarily select the same stems. Therefore, species and size class preference of humans and elephants were compared, to identify potential differences in their impacts on vegetation structure and composition. I found that humans prefer a wider range of species than elephants, so might filter the canopy layer more strongly. Elephants’ preference for slightly larger stems suggests that areas utilised by elephants might result in a more left-skewed size-class distribution than humans in areas without a charcoal industry. The high regeneration ability of many species, the large overlap in stems used by people and iii elephants and the relative flexibility in what stems can be used for a specific purpose, suggests that many of these differences in impacts on composition and structure could be mitigated. While elephants and people clearly have different impacts on woody vegetation, people are a totally novel ecological and evolutionary force due to some similarities in how both use woody biomass. The type of human utilisation will determine the stems used and I suggest that since almost all aboveground woody biomass can be utilised for charcoal, the human impact on the woodlands could be reduced by decentralising the charcoal industry. Encouraging small scale production in low rainfall, low human impact areas, could alleviate the pressure on the hotspots of biomass loss. This could provide rural populations with an additional source of income, and the woodlands with a disturbance necessary in maintaining, to some extent, the ecosystem structure and functioning. However, care needs to be taken as increasing accessibility in remote areas could result in rampant deforestation. Results from this thesis suggest that forest management principals developed in other ecosystems, which haven’t had mega-fauna for thousands of years, need to be tailored to African ecosystems. African forest managers therefore need to develop policies that consider the past and present disturbance regimes of these ecosystems. / TL (2020)

The U.S. Environmental Movement is facing a paradox: increased mobilization over the last 100 years has not been entirely effective in halting environmental degradation. This research suggests that discourse divisions among environmental movement organizations constitute a fundamental obstacle to progressive change. The discourse divisions are evident in movement organizing patterns during periods of increased environmental crisis over the history of the modern environmental movement. In addition, evidence suggests that federal environmental policy is an outcome of increased organizing among movement organizations with more transformative visions of change. However, policy outcomes from increased pressure among transformative organizations are significantly correlated with Republican presidential administrations lending evidence to the idea that policy reform is a moderating strategy employed to silence radical change-makers. The results from this research contribute to the Marxist model of historical change under-discussed in the social movement literature. It also contributes to the ongoing debate in the environmental movement literature addressing the continued effectiveness of the environmental movement as a program for change.

No panacea exists for the resolution of environmental problems. In South Africa environmental control is affected almost exclusively by way of direct prohibition an~ regulation. These policies have serious limitations predominantly as a result of legal and administrative inadequacies. The remedy of these inadequacies is not feasible and alternative, complementary or replacement control policies are needed. This report reviews a number of alternative policies, most of which rely on market related mechanisms, in the context of pollution, resource destruction and land use problems. In addition, current financial legislation is replete with provisions contributing towards the exacerbation of environmental ills. These anomalous provisions must be re-evaluated in terms of material objectives, which must include the need for sound environmental resource management. A number of provisions do, however, offer some potential for conservation activities. These provisions, together with some innovative schemes, are introduced in the report and deserve further research.

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