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Environmental Policy Roundtable
Fall 2004
Dec 3: CONSERVATION OF ARAUCARIA FOREST
IN PRIVATE LANDS SOUTHERN BRAZIL, (Flavio Pineiro, Dirk Kloss, Natural
Partners)
The Araucaria Forest in one of the the most endangered ecosystems
in Brazil today, and even the remaining small area continues to
suffer pressure from several economic groups willing to harvest
high-valued native wood or to remove native vegetation mainly for
pinus, eucalyptus and soya bean plantations. On the other hand,
those landowners that would like to conserve their native forest
areas have little financial incentives to do so. Natural Partners
and its Brazilian Partner SPVS are developing innovative ways to
engage the private sector in long-term agreements for providing
incentives to conservation on private properties. The strategy
works, both, by providing support to government initiatives as
well as by bringing private and public companies to invest in such
efforts.
Flavio C. Pinheiro is a resident of São Paulo, Brazil.
He earned a Master's degree in Urban and Environmental Policy
from Tufts University, and worked for the United States Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA). Since 2002, Mr. Pinheiro has assisted
with preparations to found Natural Partners and to start its
operations in Brazil. He now serves as the organization's representative
in Brazil.
Dirk Kloss holds an MA in Economic Geography, Ethnology and Communications
from universities in the US and Germany. In the early 90s Mr Kloss
pursued research in Costa Rica on innovative finance mechanisms
for the conservation of Latin America's tropical forests, which
in 1994 was published as the first German book on this unfolding
subject. He helped create Natural Partners and serves as one of
four officers in it's first board of directors while continuing
to work as an independent advisor to UNDP, GEF, the World Bank,
and others.
Nov 12: FOUR MORE YEARS: WHAT DOES
THAT MEAN FOR U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY? (Robert
H. Nelson, Maryland School of Public Policy, UMD)
This week's
seminar will feature a post-election outlook for the US with
a focus on environmental policy. What will changes in the complexion
of the Supreme Court mean for a reinterpretation of the question
of regulatory takings? Will the coalition of social conservatives
and libertarians be able to sustain unity long enough to rewrite
federal land use or regulatory law? Are any changes to be expected
regarding OMB's view of "sound science" and
the primary use of cost-benefit analysis? What role will markets
play in pollution reduction and management and how might this
method be complemented or substituted for? We will discuss these
and other issues with Dr. Robert H. Nelson.
Robert H. Nelson is professor of environmental policy at the School
of Public Policy of the University of Maryland and senior fellow
for environmental studies of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
He is a nationally recognized authority on land and natural resource
management in the United States, with a particular emphasis on
management of federally owned lands. Dr. Nelson worked in the Office
of Policy Analysis of the Interior Department from 1975 to 1993,
and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.
Oct 29: GAIA AND BEYOND: WHAT'S THE
ROLE OF LIFE IN THE EARTH SYSTEM? (Axel
Kleidon, Professor, Department of Geography at the University
of Maryland)
Are there any general principles that govern the way in
which life affects Earth system functioning? Most prominently,
the Gaia hypothesis addresses this question by proposing that
near-homeostatic conditions on Earth have been maintained "by and for the biosphere."
Here the role of the biota in the Earth system is described from
a viewpoint of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, particularly with
respect to the principle of maximum entropy production (MEP).
The MEP principle states that complex, dissipative systems maintain
steady states at which the rate of energy dissipation is maximized.
Applied to the whole Earth system it is argued that life constitutes
of a set of dissipative processes that are to be expected to
emerge from Earth system dynamics because they enable Earth to
maximize its energy throughput. The resulting behavior of the
Earth system at a state of MEP may well lead to near-homeostatic
behavior of the Earth system on long time scales, as proposed
by the Gaia hypothesis.
Axel Kleidon is an assistant professor in climatology in the Department
of Geography at the University of Maryland. He worked with climate
models to investigate the climatic effects of the vegetation's
rooting zone depth at the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology
in Hamburg, Germany and received his Ph.D from the University of
Hamburg in 1998. During his postdoctoral research at Stanford University,
he got involved with the Gaia hypothesis, which eventually led
him to investigate atmosphere-biosphere interactions from a thermodynamic
perspective.
Oct 15: EMERGY, ECOLOGY, ECONOMY, AND
INDUSTRY: A SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE FOR THEIR INTEGRATION (David
Tilley, Professor, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources,
University of Maryland)
Dr. Tilley will present principles of systems ecology and emergy
analysis with applications to assessing air biofiltration of carbon
monoxide, castor oil as a biofuel alternative and national economic
systems. He will give connections between ecological engineering
and industrial ecology.
David Tilley is an assistant professor of ecological engineering
in the Biological Resources Engineering Department at the University
of Maryland. Ecological engineering combines natural and applied
sciences, especially systems ecology, with the discipline of engineering
to design, construct, analyze, and manage ecosystems and to develop
eco-technologies.
Dr. Tilley received his doctorate from the University of Florida's
Systems Ecology Program, which was founded by one of his mentors,
the late H.T. Odum.
Oct 1: DECENTRALIZED ENERGY SERVICES:
OVERCOMING THE ECONOMY OF SCALE BARRIER (Deepak Malghan, Maryland
School of Public Policy)
A significant barrier for rural electrification
in remote regions of the South is overcoming the "economy
of scale" barrier.
The traditional approach to decentralized energy services has relied
on scaling-down technologies originally developed for the mega-watt
scale. Deepak Malghan's experience working with small decentralized
micro hydro power in remote regions of India suggests that it may
be possible to overcome this barrier by using technology that is
"structurally" different and not just scaled-down versions
of conventional large technology. He will touch upon both the
technology hardware as well as institutional arrangements surrounding
technology.
Sep
17: POPULATION, MIGRATION, AND GLOBALIZATION AND THEIR EFFECTS
ON THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT (Herman E. Daly, Professor, Maryland
School of Public Policy)
This Friday’s seminar will feature a short talk and group
discussion with Dr. Herman Daly. He will discuss some of his
most recent work on population, migration and globalization as
they relate to the health of the global environment. He will
also touch on the insights that Ecological Economics brings to
these issues.
Dr. Daly came to the Maryland School of Public Affairs from the
World Bank, where he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department,
helping to develop policy guidelines related to sustainable development.
While there, he was engaged in environmental operations work in
Latin America. Before joining the World Bank, Daly was Alumni Professor
of Economics at Louisiana State University. He is a co-founder
and associate editor of the journal, Ecological Economics. His
interest in economic development, population, resources, and environment
has resulted in over a hundred articles as well as numerous books,
including Steady-State Economics (1977; 1991), Valuing the Earth
(1993), Beyond Growth (1996), Ecological Economics and the Ecology
of Economics (1999), and a recently published Ecological Economics
textbook co-authored with Joshua Farley. He is co-author with theologian
John B. Cobb, Jr. of For the Common Good (1989; 1994) which received
the Grawemeyer Award for ideas for improving World Order. He is
a recipient of the Honorary Right Livelihood Award (Sweden's alternative
to the Nobel Prize), the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science
from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the
Sophie Prize (Norway).
Sep 3: JOURNEY INTO NEW WORLDS (Room
VMH 1203 !)
Film based on the book by David
Suzuki (2002)
Science and technology have worked wonders - healing disease,
extending lifespans, communicating instantaneously with the other
side of the globe. But there have also been environmental, social,
and spiritual costs. Zoologist David Suzuki believes that humans
think about the world in fragmented terms and often forget the
whole picture, with scientific theories and answers centering on
narrow issues and not acknowledging the interconnectivity of the
various fields. In this documentary film, he looks back on the
promise and limitations of Newton's reductionist science, sharing
a personal journey that began with his work at the forefront of
genetic research in the early 1960s through to his ecological epiphany
on British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands. With James Lovelock,
physiologist Ary Goldberger, astronaut Julie Payette, and biologist
Thomas Reimchen.
This seminar will be introduced by a brief description of the
field of Ecological Economics, and end with a brown-bag lunch and
open discussion.
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