Environment Management : The Dynamic Nature Of Environmental Management

One argument made by those who take on the role of being a spokesperson for the environment is that nature ought to be restored to its original state with the help of science. Science, the study of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment, is thought to be an objective activity which has the ability to produce impartial results. A person would be able to accurately assess the natural state of an area with the use of scientific research and with those results be able to determine what

Ecosystem management takes an integrated view of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, integrates ecological concepts at a variety of spatial scales, incorporates the perspectives of landscape ecology so that the range of possible landscapes in an ecosystem is recognized and preserved, and is an evolving paradigm incorporating the objective of ecological sustainability.

The audience of this book is presumed to be the general person who is not fully intact with the ideas that he or she is disrupting the ecosystem and is not aware of the effects they are doing as a whole. The book argues that no ecosystem is completely inert as things such as climate changes or drought can also affect the enviorment. Without human interaction an environment can still have issues, but the introduction of human life and economy does take a grave toll on the climate. These are irreversible effects that mankind are doing to the ecosystem. The English

(Dietz et al., 2003; Monbiot, 1994; Ostrom, 2009) Ostrom’s paper examines the diverse outcomes of the commons, as supposed to Hardin’s “one-size-fits-all”. (Ostrom et al., 2009, p. 419) This way of looking at the possible outcomes of CPRs differs from Hardin’s in that it takes into account different social and economic variables, whereas Hardin bases his perspective uniquely off of real-life examples, such as that of the high seas. She introduces the Social-Ecological-System (SES), which is a framework for examining the different roles, variables, and context that all play into the maintenance or collapse of an ecosystem. (Ostrom, 2009) SESs are made up of “(i) resource units…(ii) resource systems… (iii) governance systems… and (iv) users” (Ostrom, 2009, p.420) who all interact, and play certain roles in the outcome of an ecosystem. (Ostrom,

Koonin, who was the undersecretary for science in the Energy Department, a professor of theoretical physics and provost at Caltech, a chief scientist of BP, and is currently director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University. With all those positions, Koonin appears to be a very credible proponent for delaying climate change. He argues that climate science is not settled and society should, in turn, hold off in making brash decisions. Koonin states that there are three challenges to why climate change is not settled: the climate systems variability, the poor understanding of oceans regarding climate, and the uncertainties regarding positive and negative feedback loops (2). In other words, Koonin is saying that there are many things we do not know when we predict the climate. Koonin adds that “although most [computer] models are tuned to reproduce the gross features of the Earth’s climate, the marked differences in their details and projections reflect” all the things he stated that climate science is not settled on (3). Ergo, he concludes by saying “any serious discussion of the changing climate must begin by acknowledging not only the scientific certainties but also the uncertainties, especially in projecting the future” (5). Koonin is concerned less with the certainties of climate change than with the uncertainties of climate change. This is troubling because it delays and perhaps halts the general public from agreeing towards a sensible solution in dealing with climate change. Primarily, all humans fear uncertainties -- nothing is scarier than not knowing what can happen. So if humans are scared due to the uncertainty of a situation, they hold off from making decisions which are vital to their future. Nonetheless, life is filled with uncertainties and that should not prevent society from making progress on climate change. After all, it would be wiser to

Chapin, F.S., Carpenter, S.R., Kofinas, G.P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W.C., …& Swanson, F.J (2010). Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapid change planet.

The speakers attempt to engage the International Biodiversity Conference to adopt measures to ensure the security of earth’s biodiversity, highlights the grave environmental struggles confronting world leaders. In the persuasive presentation, “Taking stock” which appeals to environmentalist, world leaders and those in attendance of the biodiversity conference, the speaker contends current efforts to secure biodiversity are lacklustre and threatening earth’s future, attempting to garner support for a new wave of environmental action. The images accompanying the presentation support the speakers’ contention by calling to attention that importance of biodiversity.

Further, the literature review suffers from an additional lack of clarity in the paragraph on the bottom of page 634. Here, the authors begin to delve into the theory and rationalization behind including uncertainty as an appropriate measure. The authors write, “Uncertainty can affect an individuals willingness to act on environmental beliefs in several ways” signaling to the reader that a laundry list of factors is to follow. However, they only make mention of one tangentially linked evidence based factor, that an increase in the complexity of issues leads to increased uncertainty in the scientific community. No further examples in support of uncertainty follow this one. Instead, the authors pivot towards unfounded speculation about uncertainties role in individuals willingness to take environmental action, and then they abruptly transition to their discussion of trust. The issue of uncertainty persists in the manner with which the authors have chosen to operationalize their research question.

However, this is one of the author’s main themes he aims to educate his readers on; he does so by explaining the process as well as the institutions and politics involved. Rosenbaum states that “an environmental issue becomes and environmental policy as it passes through several policy phases” (38). After a break down and detailed examination of each phase the author helps his reader better understand with an example of the problems and constraints the EPA encountered when enforcing the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (1956). The growth of environmental legislation and the huge role science plays in environmental policy making indicates that environmental management has become an essential part to the government’s policies.

The ecological problem on our planet is complicated. There are many controversies surrounding endangered species because people don’t believe we should strip natural resources, there are not enough policies in place to protect species, and many people argue it takes too much money.

According to Merchants of Doubt, the IPCC’s first working report on climate change contained “six pages of discussion of uncertainty in the final text” yet it was criticized by skeptics like Nierenberg because “anything that would imply the current knowledge is poor… is struck out” (Oreskes and Conway, 207, 2013). But despite the accusations baselessness, Nierenberg’s criticisms were listened to by policy makers. He effectively used uncertainty or imagined lack thereof as a tool to undermine the IPCC report’s perceived

Social ecology casts away the idea that we are more important than nature and the idea that nature is more important than us, and instead it recognizes the relations we have between humans and nature, as well as the relations we have among ourselves. As humans, we have characteristics that differentiate us from nature and animals, like social interactions and communities and the ability to understand the interactions between them. Social ecology rejects the notion of a hierarchy of any form, and recognizes that before we can solve ecological issues, we must solve the social issues that we face as a result of institutionalized hierarchies. And so we must work together to solve these social issues, and we must be careful while implementing new social structures so that we don’t create new hierarchies that merely replace the old ones, we must rid ourselves from hierarchies all

Ecological integrity is the ability to support and maintain a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of the natural habitat of the region. However, a consensus has not yet emerged as to the definition of ecological integrity. Clearly, human activities result in many environmental changes that enhance some species, ecosystems, and ecological processes, while at the same time causing important damage to others. The challenge for the concept of ecological integrity is to provide a means of distinguishing between responses that represent improvements in the quality of ecosystems, and those that are degradations. Nature

Environmental issues have been a cause of a lot of debate in the recent past. Governments and nongovernmental organizations have been in constant consultations on how to help protect the environment. Apparently, as a result of man’s many actions, the natural environment is getting torn apart so quickly that the coming generations will not enjoy this kind of environment, unless a

Regarding biodiversity conservation debates, many biologists, lawmakers and developers nowadays adopt the framework of “conservation science” (Kareiva and Marvier, 2012) to manage the environment in a way that can maximize the benefits to humans. Dudgeon (2014) described it as an approach to conservation that places greater emphasis on service provision of the species