According to the Swedish Forestry Act, environmental protection is required within forest operations regardless of forest ownership. This thesis examines the extent to which regulations issued by the National Board of Forestry are implemented in clearcuttings. Different factors contributing to the outcome of environmental protection are analyzed both from a top-down and a bottom-up perspec­tive. Empirically, the study combines field investigation of clearcuts, interviews with implementing actors, and evaluation of written prescriptions and advice on environ­mental protection. The Swedish forest-environmental legislation and implementation process is also compared to that of the U.S. and, especially, to the state of Cali­fornia . Conflicting goals within the Forestry Act and vague environmental guidelines leave the implementing agency officers with great discretion. Steering attempts by the Forestry Agency are in terms of friendly advice and information. No breaches of the regulations were taken to court during 1980-1986 although this is formally possible. There is an average compliance of approximately fifty per cent of the required environmental measures. Aesthetic values are taken into account to a greater extent than pure floristic and faunistic ones. Economic considerations and harvest technology contribute to a low degree of environmental protection. Forest machines are inadequately suited for protecting single, environmentally valuable trees and they frequently cause deep tracks. Inadequate environmental knowledge and insufficient pre-harvest environmental planning also affect environ­mental performance negatively. Generally, economic considerations contribute to the low priority to environ­mental protection given by the implementing actors compared to timber production. Economic inducements counteract environmental protection. It is generally rare that environmentalists and other public interests affected by forest operations are consulted. Environmentalists however influence indirectly through political pressure to legislate, participation in the consultation process before legislation is enacted, and mass-media attention. / digitalisering@umu

From the beginning of nineties, when significant changes took place, Russia began to elaborate new environmental policy and designed new patterns for responding the environmental problems. The paper tried to make a contribution to our understanding of environmental policy and policy processes within the Russia in general terms and to the nature of environmental agenda setting in Pskov region in more specific terms. This thesis is therefore explores environmental agenda setting process in Russia taking into consideration contemporary trends in the analysis of policy- making, such as inclusion of non-state actors as well as role of ideas shaping actors attitudes and behaviour. The purpose of the thesis is to study the relationship between transnational forces and interactions, national policy and local political developments and the role of various agents and institutions in agenda setting of the regional environmental policy-making. The frame of reference is constituted by a theoretical combination of the agenda-setting model with constructivist approach in order to broaden our investigation of the implications of environmental policy-making, impact of political culture upon construction of environmental issues, and transformations in the public policy. By focusing on Pskov region case, the paper identifies and discusses a number of reasons why environmental issues are found on the margins of the political agenda. A central argument is that in the absence of effective governance in the Pskov region, international agents together with regional interest groups formulate environmental agenda. The paper concludes that, even though, the mentality of environmentalism is set through the foreign assistance, the processes of learning from international cooperation may contribute to attainment of regional environmental objectives.

The break-up of the Soviet Union handed down the Russian Federation a number of Soviet environmental legacies ranging from contaminated areas to the old bureaucratic procedures and outdated practices. In the post-Soviet years of transition to a free-market economy Russia began to face increasingly acute tension between environmental security and economic development, and the state’s ability to effectively pursue environmental policies deteriorated. Current environmental policy-makers are faced with a multitude of challenges that range from complicated environmental systems to the inconsistent legislative framework and resource deficiencies. Although researchers have paid some attention to these problems, environmental decision-making remains a poorly illuminated area and constitutes a theoretically challenging problem. This paper addresses the regional environmental decision-making process in the Russian Federation. Using the Pskov region on the border with Byelorussia and the two future EU members Estonia and Latvia as a case study, this paper seeks to supply a better understanding of how environmental decisions are made on the regional and local levels with a special focus on constraints affecting environmental policy-making. The study attempts to explain the environmental decision-making process in light of the two competing theories of decision- making, incrementalism and the bureaucratic politics model. It is primarily based on interviews made in the Pskov region in the autumn of 2002.

<p>Environmental policy is increasingly implemented via market mechanisms. While this is in many ways a great success for the economics profession, a number of questions remain. In this dissertation, I empirically explore the question of what will happen as environmental outcomes are coupled to potentially volatile market phenomena, whether policies can insulate environmental outcomes and market shocks, and policymakers should act to mitigate such volatility. I use a variety of empirical methods including reduced form and structural econometrics as well as theoretical models to consider a variety of policy, market, and institutional contexts. The effectiveness of market interventions depends on the context and on the policy mechanism. In particular, energy markets are characterized by low demand elasticities and kinked supply curves which are very flat below a capacity constraint (elastic) and very steep above it (inelastic). This means that a quantity-based policy that acts on demand, such as releasing additional pollution emission allowances from a reserved fund would be an effective way to constrain price shocks in a cap-and-trade system. However, a quantity-based policy that lowers the need for inframarginal supply, such as using ethanol as an oil product substitute to mitigate oil shocks, would be ineffective. Similarly, the benefits of such interventions depends on the macroeconomic impacts of price shocks from the sector. Relatedly, I show that a liability rule designed to reduce risk from low-probability, high-consequence oil spills have very low compliance costs.</p> / Dissertation

Over the past ten years, the State of California has realized environmental, economic, and social benefits through the increased deployment of solar photovoltaic technologies. However, utility-scale and residential-scale solar projects also pose a variety of problems, which have created barriers to their broader adoption. Community solar projects offer a model for solar development that can reduce the problems associated with utility-scale and residential-scale projects, while simultaneously preserving the benefits of each. This thesis examines the problems associated with current solar projects and proposes policy to support the community solar project model in California.

During the last 50 years, western European societies have been successful in creating economic growth, a functioning democracy and uniting these with social welfare. At the same time, environmental problems have become a major political challenge. Although some measures have been taken to introduce environmental protection, there continue to be serious problems. These can be related to democratic priorities and public information in the sense that they may, amongst other things, be a result of misinformed democratic publics. Jürgen Habermas's work is important for our understanding of how environmental problems can be managed better than today if, contrary to the ecoauthoritarian ideas, we consider that the solution to these problems calls for more democracy and better democratic forms. One can argue that his theory of communicative action makes it difficult to ignore him in debates about today's environmental problems. There are, nevertheless, three difficulties associated with developing a model based on Habermas's theory. Critics argue that, firstly, his theory has theoretical weaknesses; secondly, it is formulated in a way which makes empirical analysis impossible; and, thirdly, it cannot explain the rise of environmental protests and environmental movements, even if Habermas has this ambition. In the thesis, it is considered that environmental problems are political-cultural questions. Accordingly, a political cultural theory is constructed to interprete Habermas's ideas and assess the arguments of his critics. This theory consists of assumptions about notions and types of language-use used in co-ordinating collective action. It is built on the following variables: view of knowledge, view of social values and nature, and view of language-use. It is argued that Habermas's ideas can be defended, if one elaborates a political subculture that is biocentric (nature-centred), as a complement to anthropocentrism (a human-centred view of nature). Thus, his theory of communicative action can be used to develop a cultural model for empirical studies of environmental policy processes. The model consists of three cultural ideal types: anthropocentric material; anthropocentric immaterial; and biocentric immaterial. Obstacles to social learning and public participation, such as forms and styles of reasoning and the exclusion of citizens, are brought into focus. Finally, the model functions as a criticism of a neo-liberal view of environmental problems. Such a view lacks concepts for understanding how individuals consciously can co-ordinate their ideas and individual actions into a collective action. / digitalisering@umu

Residences in Warren County, Kentucky, are characterized by high levels of residential radon, which is one of the radioactive daughter products of uranium. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), radon exposure causes approximately 22,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States per year. The City of Bowling Green, in Warren County, is underlain by karst, an easily soluble limestone subsurface, which allows radon gas to travel easily through cracks and fissures. Carbonate rocks under Bowling Green are underlain by the Devonian Chattanooga Shale, a low-grade uranium ore and a potential source of radon gas. A digital map of the Chattanooga Shale was created using Arc GIS. A 1.6 km by 1.6 km (one-mile by onemile) grid for Warren County was generated, and depth data from oil wells within each grid cell were averaged to render the elevation of the top surface of the Chattanooga Shale in a digital format. A socio-economic GIS of Warren County was created using US Census Bureau and Property Value Administration data. The Chattanooga Shale and the socio-economic layers were correlated to test points that have high residential radon measurements to determine whether proximity to the shale layer or home type is the better predictor for radon risk. Once risks have been determined, management decisionmaking is simplified and resources can be targeted towards high need areas. Although this study determined that home type, i.e., size of the home and whether there is a basement present, does have a significant effect on residential radon levels, proximity to the top surface of the Chattanooga Shale does not have a significant effect in Warren County, Kentucky. Due to this lack of a geologic pattern it is recommended that radon mitigation systems be included in all new home construction and design.

Buildings are a significant energy consumer and are responsible for an increasingly large percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, currently between 30 and 40 percent. Energy efficiency presents unique opportunities for building owners to reduce their environmental footprint and add value through cost savings, tax deductions, and increased market value. An analysis of 183 samples of efficiency measures in seven technology categories found that 74% of efficiency investments had a positive net present value. Building automation system and chiller plant improvements had the highest mean energy and carbon dioxide savings per square foot. Additionally, building automation systems had, on average the highest return on investment, approximately $800 above the cost of implementation per one thousand square feet. Only building envelope modifications had a negative mean return on investment. Building automation system upgrades avoided an average of 350 pounds of CO2e for every dollar spent, reducing a building’s total carbon footprint by as much as 28%. The results suggest that a significant opportunity for cost, energy, and emission savings is available across all technology categories.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of the ecological ICMS (ICMS-e) in the Brazilian Amazon, an intragovernmental transfer for incentivizing biodiversity conservation. Tax funds are passed from state governments to municipalities in proportion to the amount of protected area within their borders; biological reserves, sustainable use areas, and indigenous lands are all considered. Econometric analysis using a fixed effects model found that the policy had little positive effect on increasing protected areas compared to the significant negative influence of poor land tenure, agricultural influences, and lack of monitoring for illegal deforestation. However, the policy may increase municipal governments' acceptance of and support for protected areas, especially if combined with institutional support.

European immigrants introduced orchards to the U.S. in the early 1600s. As they began to establish settlements and migrate west, they brought orchard cultivation with them, creating an extensive network of orchards spread across the U.S. However, over time many of these orchards were lost due to urban development, which is what makes Seattle’s historic orchards significant. Early Seattle settlers planted orchards in the 1800s and early 1900s, and their remnants still exist today, despite urban development. Over the years, many of the orchards have been incorporated onto City Department-owned land, but they have not been maintained to the extent that they could or should be. In the past few years, there has been an interest in rejuvenating Seattle’s historic orchards and planting new ones in order to contribute to the growing local urban agriculture movement. This piece of work is framed around a discussion of the significance of Seattle’s orchards, their significance to the surrounding communities, and how the work accomplished at these sites can become sustainable.