Nature Protection Organizations and Climate Change in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. van Markham ◽  
C.S.A. (Kris) Koppen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The United States ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Nature Protection ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The Public ◽  
Climate Change Politics

This article investigates the messages about climate change that ten nature protection organizations in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States communicate to their members and the public through their Internet sites, member magazines, and annual reports. Based on analysis of this content, we conclude that all the organizations address climate change, but to varying extents and in differing ways. All of the organizations note that climate change is a major problem, has a significant impact on nature, and should be addressed mainly via mitigation. With the partial exception of the Dutch groups, all also inform their members about domestic climate change politics. Other themes, including international dimensions of climate change, adaptation to climate change, consumer behavior, collaboration with and criticism of business, and efforts to pressure business or government received less emphasis overall. How much emphasis the organizations gave these themes was conditioned by their traditions, constituencies, national context, and international affiliations.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Crime Coverage
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right To Know ◽  
Cultural Attitudes ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Media Practices ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Public Right

This chapter sets up the thesis of the book: Crime coverage practices serve as a lens to consider underlying cultural attitudes to concepts like privacy, public, public right to know, and justice. Differing decisions, for example, about whether to name suspects, suggest varying beliefs about the value of privacy and the public right to know. The chapter outlines the methodology and situates the work in relation to Daniel Hallin and Paulo Mancini, whose book Comparing Media Practices influenced the selection of countries, as well as the initial premises. We name the ten countries that comprise the basis of our comparison, and briefly introduce our three media models: the Protectors (Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden), the Watchdogs (the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States), and the Ambivalents (Spain, Italy, and Portugal). The chapter concludes with a brief overview of individual book chapters.

scholarly journals Look to Windward: The Michigan Environmental Protection Act and the Case for Atmospheric Trust Litigation in the Mitten State

2021 ◽  
pp. 275
Author(s):  
Jonathan Coumes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Potential Relief ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
History Of

Failure to address climate change or even slow the growth of carbon emissions has led to innovation in the methods activists are using to push decisionmakers away from disaster. In the United States, climate activists frustrated by decades of legislative and executive inaction have turned to the courts to force the hand of the state. In their most recent iteration, climate cases have focused on the public trust doctrine, the notion that governments hold their jurisdictions’ natural resources in trust for the public. Plaintiffs have argued that the atmosphere is part of the public trust and that governments have a duty to protect it. These types of lawsuits, known as Atmospheric Trust Litigation, have foundered on the shoals of courts wary of exceeding their powers, whether granted by Article III or state constitutions. The trouble in many cases, including Juliana v. United States, has been standing. Courts balk at declaring that any one actor has the power to affect climate change. Since they usually think one actor can’t fix the climate, redressability is out the window. Even if courts get past redressability, they believe the scale of any potential relief is just beyond the ability of a court to order. The number of lawsuits that have been filed suggests that that reasonable minds can differ, but most judges have found plaintiffs do not have standing before clearing the cases off their dockets. This Note contends that at least one state remains fertile ground for an atmospheric trust lawsuit. Michigan’s 1963 Constitution implies that the atmosphere is within the public trust, and the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, passed to carry out the state’s constitutional duties towards the natural world, does away with most, if not all, of the standing issues that have stymied climate cases across the nation. Motions, briefs, and equitable relief are not the only way to avoid the onset of what could be the greatest calamity in the history of humanity, but in Michigan, at least, Atmospheric Trust Litigation may well be what breaks and rolls back the carbon tide.

scholarly journals General and Partial Equilibrium Modeling of Sectoral Policies to Address Climate Change in the United States

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Pizer ◽  
Dallas Burtraw ◽  
Winston Harrington ◽  
Richard Newell ◽  
James Sanchirico ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Partial Equilibrium ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Equilibrium Modeling

Current Legal Developments Climate Change and the Constitutional Obligation to Protect Natural Resources: The Pennsylvania Atmospheric Trust Litigation

Climate Law ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 209-226
Author(s):  
Samvel Varvaštian
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
State Government ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Trust Doctrine

When it comes to climate litigation, environmental plaintiffs in the United States have demonstrated a remarkable ingenuity in terms of utilizing various legal avenues to compensate for the persisting regulatory gaps. In the last few years, the public trust doctrine and constitutional law have been present among these, in an attempt to put the risks associated with climate change on the map of human rights in relation to the environment and natural resources. However, despite a nationwide occurrence of such lawsuits, courts have been cautious in their approach to them. Similar lawsuits have emerged outside the United States, in Europe and Asia, demonstrating some viability. This analysis addresses the recent litigation in Pennsylvania, where petitioners asked the court to order the state government to take action on climate change and to declare such action a constitutional obligation under the state’s Constitution. 1

scholarly journals Technocratic Structures of Climate Policy: Dead-end Debates, Neat Narratives and Manipulative Machiavellianism

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Taylor A. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Large Influence ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Dead End

The contemporary models of climate change policy-making in the United States are particular to this decade. The increased role for experts and expert-led policymaking is unprecedented. However this power has been paradoxical. This paper argues that an excessive role for science in discussions of climate change has undermined the public’s role, and has thus undermined the efforts on behalf of policymakers to pass comprehensive climate change policy. Two main aspects of the excessive role for science in the formation of climate policy were found to be 1. the large influence of dissenting scientists on the debate, and 2. the alienation of the public from the discourse. Further, possible scenarios for policymaking, which better balance the roles of experts, the public, and policymakers, are discussed and frameworks for the future are outlined.

Exploratory Geovisualization of the Character and Distribution of American Climate Change Beliefs

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82
Author(s):  
Johnathan W. Sugg
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Organizing Map ◽  
The Public ◽  
Choropleth Maps ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Change Beliefs ◽  
Self Organizing

AbstractAmericans remain polarized about climate change. However, recent scholarship reveals a plurality of climate change opinions among the public, with nontrivial support for a range of awareness, risk perceptions, and policy prescriptions. This study uses publicly available opinion estimates to examine the geographic variability of American climate change opinions and maps them as regions that share similarities or differences in the character of their beliefs. The exploratory geovisual environment of a self-organizing map is used to compare the support for 56 different climate opinions across all counties in the United States and arrange them into a spatially coherent grid of nodes. To facilitate the exploration of the patterns, a statistical cluster analysis groups together counties with the most similar climate beliefs. Choropleth maps visualize the clustering results from the self-organizing map. This study finds six groups of climate beliefs in which member counties exhibit a distinct regionality across the United States and share similarities in the magnitude of support for specific opinions. Groups that generally exhibit high or low levels of support for climate change awareness, risk perceptions, and policy prescriptions vary in their relative support for specific opinions. The results provide a nuanced understanding of different types of climate change opinions and where they exist geographically.

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