Читать книгу What is Environmental Politics? - Elizabeth R. DeSombre - Страница 6

Why is it so difficult to prevent, or fix, problems of pollution? Why do we continually harvest or extract natural resources at unsustainable rates, even though these activities cause known harm to both people and ecosystems? Why do environmental problems frequently harm groups of people who are already the most vulnerable and least powerful?

Addressing environmental issues isn’t primarily an issue of science or information. Despite uncertainty about some details, we frequently understand the basic processes by which environmental problems happen, at least once we discover them. Responding to – or even creating – environmental problems requires political decisions: choices by governments (and others) about how to allocate resources and prioritize tradeoffs among different social values. These political decisions involve advocacy by groups with various priorities and different levels of political influence. This political process, which can be difficult enough for many social issues, faces particular challenges when addressing the environment.

Environmental politics is the study of how societies make decisions about resource use, pollution, or economic activities that influence the condition of the environment. These processes frequently, but not always, take place within government institutions. They involve or affect people from many economic and social sectors. Preventing or addressing environmental problems requires accurately diagnosing the characteristics of these problems and understanding the political processes for making rules about the activities that cause them.