*
Krieger, Martin H. 1988. "The
Inner
Game of Writing," Journal of
Policy Analysis and Management, v7n2
(1988): 408-416.
[A very handy guide to analytical
writing, with lots of handy tips for avoiding and dismantling writer's
block. A must-read for anyone who needs to write effectively and to meet
deadlines.]
Week of 10/24
** Perrings, Charles. 1991.
"Reserved Rationality and the
Precautionary Principle: Technological
Change,
Time, and Uncertainty In
Environmental Decision Making," in Robert
Costanza,
ed., 1991,
Ecological Economics: The Science and Management of
Sustainability."
New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
p153-166.
* Kahn,
Alfred E. 1966. "The Tyranny
of Small Decisions: Market Failures,
Imperfections, and the Limits of
Economics,"
Kyklos
v19n1 (1966):
p. 23-47.
[Strenuous
efforts have been made
on the one hand to indentiy and anaylse defects in
the resource
allocation
effected by an unregulated market, such as might
be remedied by
government
intervention; and, on the other, to devise
economic criteria for
allocating
resources alternatively via government
spending. The present essay falls
in the former category: it defines and
analyzes a particular inherent
characteristic
of the market that is
capable, under certain circumstances, of producing
a defective or
possibly objectionable outcome.]
Rubin, Edward L. 1998. "Putting
Rational
Actors In Their Place: Economics and Phenomenology,"
Vanderbilt
Law
Review, v 51n6 (Nov 1998): 1705-1727.
[The particular brand of psychology
that
microeconomics propounds is generally called the rational actor
theory,
and it comes in 2 varieties: 1. the "weak" or "thin" variety, and 2. the
"strong" or "thick" variety. In recent years, a new criticism of rational
actor theory based on what may be called micro-empirics, or behavioral
economics, has been articulated. This article describes a set of
laboratory
studies which suggest that people in a variety of simple
experimental
settings
do not behave in a rational manner. While these
empirically based
criticisms
of rational actor theory seem convincing,
rational actor theory itself
has been confirmed by other empirical tests
that seem equally convincing.
One strategy for resolving this conflict
is to assume that rational actor
theory only operates over a delimited
range of behaviors, and that the
situations identified by the macro- and
micro-empirical criticisms are
explained by a different theory. This
article offers a preliminary
version
of that resolution. It argues that
rational actor theory, and its
rational
choice component, are accurate
theories of human psychology, but only in
a limited range of situations.]
{Microeconomics; Psychology;
Behavior}
Week of 10/31
** Runnels, Curtis N. 1995.
"Environmental Degradation in Ancient Greece," Scientific American
v272n3 (Mar 1995): 96-99.
[Contrary to the view that the
ancients
lived in harmony with
their environment, archaeological and geologic
evidence
show that they
often abused the land.]
** Turner, Frederick. 1985.
"Cultivating the American Garden: Toward a Secular View of Nature,"
HarperÌs,
v271n1623 (Aug 1985): 45-52.
** Pollan, Michael. 1991. "The
Idea of
a Garden," 209-238 in Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A
Gardener's
Education. New York: Dell Publishing.
* Turner, B. L. II. & Karl W.
Butzer.
1992. "The Columbian Encounter and Land-Use Change," Environment,
v34n8 (Oct 1992): 16-20+.
[The 1492 "Columbian encounter" set
in motion the most dramatic
changes in land use and land cover induced
by human action up to that
time. A historical narrative of the changes
that took place around the
world is given.] {Explorers; Land use;
History}
* McPhee, John. 1988. "The Control
of Nature: Los Angeles Against the Montains - I," The New Yorker,
(Sept 26, 1988): 45 (19).
* McPhee, John. 1988. "The Control
of Nature: Los Angeles Against
the Montains - II," The New Yorker,
(Oct 3, 1988): 72
(18).
Evernden,
Neil. 1992. "The Social Use
of Nature," 3-17 in Neil Everndon, The
Social Creation of Nature.
Baltimore; London: The Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Turner, Frederick. 1998. "The Landscape
of Disturbance,"
Wilson Quarterly, v22n2 (Spring 1998):
37-41.
[Turner notes that people are torn
between the postmodernist vision of the sublime technological landscape
and the environmentalist wilderness. Modernist landscape plans always
seem
to lie stunned beneath an endless halcyon-blue sky.] {Rural areas;
Environment}
Week of 11/7
** Hardin, Garrett (1968) 1994.
"The Tragedy of the
Commons," and "Second Thoughts on the Tragedy of the
Commons," 126-151 in
Herman E. Daly & Kenneth N. Townsend (eds.),
Valuing
the Earth:
Economics, Ecology, Ethics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
**
Boulding, Kenneth E. 1966
(1994). "The Economics of the Coming
Spaceship Earth," and "Spaceship
Earth
Revisited," 297-313 in Herman E.
Daly & Kenneth N. Townsend (eds.),
Valuing
the Earth: Economics,
Ecology, Ethics. Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
Week of
11/14
**
Rittel, Horst W.J. & Melvin
M. Webber. 1973. "Wicked Problems,"
272-280 in Nigel Cross, David
Elliott
& Robin Roy (eds.),
Man-Made Futures: Readings in Society,
Technology
and Design,
Hutchinson Educational, in association with The Open
University
Press.
** Allen,
Timothy F.H. & Bruce
L. Bandurski & Anthony W. King. 1993.
The Ecosystem Approach:
Theory and Ecosystem Integrity. Initial
Report to the Ecological
Committee,
Great Lakes Science Advisory Board,
International Joint Commission, US
& Canada.
* Slocombe, C. Scott. 1993a.
"Environmental
Planning, Ecosystem Science, and Ecosystem Approaches for
Integrating
Environment
and Development," Environmental
Management, v17n3 (1993).
p289-303.
* King, Anthony W. 1993. "Considerations
of
Scale and Hierarchy," 19-45 in Stephen Woodley, James Kay & George
Francis (eds.), Ecological Integrity and the Management of
Ecosystems,
****.
Week of 11/21
** Holling, Crawford S. & Michael
A.
Goldberg. 1971. "Ecology and Planning," AIP Journal [now
JAPA]
(July 1971):221-230.
[Boundary-oriented and
equilibrium-centered
views. The positive feedback of freeways generates traffic. Sprawl forces
an increase in the productivity-area relationship in agricultural
production,
reducing resilience in the land. Many small (diverse)
interventions
probably
better than few big ones. Complexity is a
planning goal in and of itself.
And, we ought not design for success,
but rather to avoid failure. "We
should be much more wary of success than
of failure." (229), and the need
for a boundary-oriented view in
planning. (In a sense, IMO, like the
statistical
turn. The type, the
ideal, the equilibrium position is best seen as a
construct
(like a
landmark, always "out there," And the variations about the norm,
the
boundaries, the "elbow room," become actual.]
** Bright, Chris. 2000.
"Anticipating Environmental 'Surprise'," 22-38 in Lester R. Brown (ed.),
State
of the World 2000: A WorldWatch Institute Report on Progress
Toward a
Sustainable
Society. New York: W.W. Norton.
* Holling, Crawford S. 1986. "The
Resilience
of Terrestrial Ecosystems: Local Surprise and Global Change,"
292-317 in
William C. Clark & R.E. Munn (eds.), Sustainable
Development of
the Biosphere, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Week of 11/28
** Waggoner, Paul E. 1996. "How
Much Land Can Ten Billion
People Spare For Nature?" Daedalus,
v125n3
(Summer 1996):
73-93.
** Kates,
Robert W. 1996.
"Population,
Technology, and the Human Environment:
A Thread Through Time,"
Daedalus,
v125n3 (Summer 1996):
43-71.
* Cohen, Joel
E. 1995. "Population
Growth and EarthÌs Human Carrying Capacity,"
Science, v269n5222
(Jul 21, 1995): 341-346.
[EarthÌs capacity to support people
is determined both by natural constraints and by human choices concerning
economics, environment, culture and demography. Mathematical models of
the relation between human population growth and human carrying capacity
are discussed.]
* Turner, B. L. II. 1997. "The
Sustainability Principle in Global
Agendas: Implications for
Understanding
Land-Use/Cover Change,"
Geographical Journal, v163 (Part 2) (Jul
1997):
133-140.
[The
centrality of the
sustainability
principle to the international agendas
on environment and development
raises
serious research problems and
opportunities. The problems are manifested
in such societal objectives as
'sustainable development' and a history
of human-environment
relationships, suggesting that the objective
constitutes
a paradox. The
opportunities follow from the fusion of sustainable
development
and
global environmental change research fostered by the principle. This
fusion is particularly pronounced in the study of land-use/cover change
in the tropical world, a subject elevated to the forefront of the
research
and practitioner communities. The international agendas
addressing this
change, such as the IGBP-IHDP core project on
LandUse/Cover Change,
promise
long-term, sustained research activities
that join the natural and human
sciences with the research and
practitioner communities. They do so,
however,
by requiring a scale and
type of interdisciplinary and inter-perspective
cooperation and
coordination not typical of all human sciences, including
geography. The
divisive character of competing approaches and
explanations
of
land-use/cover change illustrate this situation.] {Area planning and
development Environment}
* Ojima, D.S. & K.A. Galvin
& B.L.
Turner II. 1994. "The Global Impact of Land-Use Change,"
Bioscience,
v44n5 (May 1994): 300-304.
[Key research issues relative to
rapid changes
in land use and land cover that affect the global
environment
are
discussed, including social-economic factors. It is difficult to
predict
how social-economical factors affecting land-use practices will be
affected
by changes in climate or atmospheric chemistry.] {Land use;
Social
conditions
and trends; Economic conditions;
Environment}
Houghton, R.A. 1995. "Land-use
Change and the Carbon Cycle,"
Global Change Biology, v1 (1995):
275-287.
Daily, Gretchen C.; Ehrlich, Paul R.
1992. "Population, Sustainability, and EarthÌs Carrying Capacity,"
Bioscience,
v42n10 (Nov 1992): 761-771.
[Nuclear weapons and the
unrestrained
runaway
growth of the human population threaten to impair human
life-support
systems. A framework for estimating the population sizes and lifestyles
that could be sustained without undermining future generations is
provided,
and various biophysical and social dimensions of EarthÌs
carrying
capacity
are examined.]
Week of 12/5
** Ausubel, Jesse H. 1996. "The
Liberation of the Environment," Daedalus, v125n3 (Summer 1996):
1-17.
[Ausubel argues
that
well-established
trajectories that raise the efficiency with which
people use energy,
land,
water and materials can cut pollution and leave
more soil unturned. In
altering the landscape so dramatically, humans
have secured a new
insecurity
in that more has been transformed than is
needed or
prudent.]
** Starr, Chauncey. 1996.
"Sustaining the Human
Environment: The Next Two Hundred Years,"
Daedalus,
v125n3
(Summer 1996): 235-253.
[Starr discusses habitability,
sustainability
and quality of
life for people in the next 200 years based on population
growth, water
and food availability and energy use. There are a number
of threats to a
sustainable world of the future.]
* Wernick, Iddo K.; Herman, Robert;
Govind,
Shekhar; Ausubel, Jesse H. 1996. "Materialization and
Dematerialzation:
Measures and Trends," Daedalus, v125n3 (Summer 1996):
171-198.
[Wernick et
al report analyses of
materialization and dematerialization during the
20th century.
Dematerialization
refers to the absolute or relative
reduction in the quantity of materials
required to serve economic
functions. Substantial progress has been made
over the last century in
decoupling economic growth and well-being from
increasing primary energy
use through increased
efficiency.]
Week of 12/12
** Beatley, Timothy & Kristy
Manning. 1997. "The Ecology of Place," 86-136 in Timothy Beatley
&
Kristy Manning, The Ecology of Place: Planning for Environment,
Economy,
and Community. Washington, DC: Island Press.
** Hough, Michael. 1995. "
Urban
Ecology: A Basis for Shaping Cities," 5-32 in Cities and Natural
Process.
New York: Routledge.
** Hough, Michael. 1995.
"Climate:
Making Connections," 245-286 in Cities and Natural Process. New
York: Routledge.
*
Johnson, Lena E. 1995.
"Sustainability:
Towards An Holistic Vision of
Architecture," The Structurist,
n35-36
(1995-1996):
86-98.
Harland,
Maddy. 1999. "Creating
Permanent
Culture," The Ecologist, v29n3
(May/June 1999):
212-13.
["Permaculture, originally
'Permanent
Agriculture,Ì is often
viewed as a set of gardening techniques, but it
has in fact developed
into a whole design philosophy, and for some people
a philosophy for
life. Its central theme is the creation of human systems
that provide
for human needs, by using many natural elements and drawing
inspiration
from natural ecosystems. Its goals and priorities coincide
with what many
people see as the core requirements for
sustainability."]
White, David. 1999. "Perspective
On Permaculture: Nature Inspires
a Design Concept for Sustainable
Living,"
The
Los Angeles Times,
(Apr 4, 1999).
[The
quality of air, water, land
and life is being sacrificed to focus on
immediate requirements. A
marriage
of science and art offers an
alternative.]
Roseland, Mark, et al. 1994.
Sustainable
Communities: An
Examination of the Literature. A Draft Report for the
Sustainable
Communities Working Group of the Ontario Round Table on
Environment
and
Economy, prepared by Mark Roseland, Research Director and Visiting
Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6 (Edited by Tony Leighton), March
1994
[Return to Top of Page]
[Last Update: October 25, 2000]