Abstract: Perhaps the most familiar notion of “consensus” involves some sort of counting – e.g., vote tallying – resulting in unanimity or a majority. But consensus is a heterogeneous category. And some important forms, as practiced, are quite different from this. I will consider a form of consensus that goes by various names, referring to its various aspects: “decision by interpretation,” “apparent consensus,” “nemine contradicente,” “joint agreement.” It is not about counting, not about unanimity or a majority. What especially concerns me here is the manner in which this form of consensus represents the epistemic state-of-play of a community of experts, without revealing differences among the community members with regard to the issues under consideration. Such apparent consensus can therefore mask considerable disagreement. I will discuss contexts and senses in which such decision procedures are, and are not, advantageous for groups of experts. I will illustrate differences between such consensus practices, and the more commonly analyzed unanimity and majority practices, with reference to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Bio:
John Beatty teaches history and philosophy of science, and social and political philosophy, in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. John’s research focuses on the theoretical foundations, methodology, and socio-political dimensions of genetics and evolutionary biology. His current research projects concern more specifically: 1) the distinction between “history” and “science,” and the respects in which evolutionary biology is as much like the former as it is like the latter; 2) changing views of contingency and necessity in the evolutionary biology; 3) relationships between biology and “the state,” from the Manhattan Project to the Human Genome Project; and 4) issues concerning the nature of scientific “authority.”
The video for Yaron Cohen‘s seminar on June 9, 2015 is now available.
Organizational Constraints on Carbon Management in Airports
Abstract:
Airports are complex multi-stakeholder organizations that can be as challenging to manage as small cities, due to the high number of parties involved in their operation. Carbon emissions have begun to occupy an important place in airports’ environmental management plans in the recent years, as part of the overall attempts to reduce carbon emissions from air-travel. As a result of the high number of tenants involved in airports’ operation, collaborative carbon management is required in order to succeed achieving the carbon reduction goals.
My research focuses on airports from around the world, and their ways of managing carbon policies together with their tenants. In this talk I will present the preliminary findings from my survey that was distributed in collaboration with Airport Council International (ACI) to airports in different parts of the world. The purpose of this study is to assess barriers for collaborative carbon management in airports, as reflected in current and planned carbon policies.
Bio:
Yaron Cohen is a Master of Science student at the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability (IRES) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is supervised by Dr. Milind Kandlikar and Dr. Jasenka Rakas (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering – UC Berkeley). He has a bachelor degree in Business Administration from the Interdisciplinary Center – Herlizya (Israel), as well as a LEED Green Associate credential.
Yaron’s research uses organizational GHG accounting tools, as well as other methods to understand how carbon emissions from air-travel are monitored and managed at an airport’s level, and what might be the implications of the current situation on a possible future solution to mitigate GHG emissions from air-travel. Other than airports and sustainable aviation, his research interests include green buildings, sustainable transportation planning at both the city and regional levels, and renewable energy.
Back in 2010 he attended the prestigious leadership program “The Global Village for Future Leaders of Business and Industry” at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, where he took part in a project to develop a community engagement tool for a cement company. In addition, he used to work in business development for a small Israeli start-up company in the clean-energy sector.
Due to his interest in the world of aviation, Yaron enjoys plane-spotting (from time to time), as well as writing his blog “Airportonomy” about the relationship between airports, society, and the environment.
The blog’s address: http://airportonomy.com
A story of Minamata’s revitalization: a shift from industrial pollution and social divisions to environmental model city
Takayoshi Kusago
Abstract:
Minamata-city was chosen one of the first six environmental model cities by the central government of Japan in 2008. Once the city was known as the worst pollution case in the Japanese history and perhaps one of the worst cases in the world, and now it is officially acknowledged as a leading city in environmental management. How this was accomplished in Minamata? This micro-level change is not only a local interest; rather, it is a common concern for all of us who have followed industrialization and modernization for decades and have faced various forms of environmental degradation. In this seminar, a story of Minamata’s community revitalization will be presented from Minamata-disease problem to environmental model city by paying closer attention to Moyainaoshi (collaboration among different local agents), local autonomy, and an innovative development method to revitalize communities.
Bio:
Dr. Takayoshi Kusago is a Professor at Kansai University, Osaka, Japan and a Visiting Professor, IRES, UBC for 2015-2016. From the perspective of human development and capability approach, he has studied a variety of subjects pertinent to modernization and sustainable development. He places enormous importance on how local people can actively engage in creating own community/society where they can achieve higher level of well-being. He has community-based well-being action-research projects in Japan, Bhutan and Nepal. He has published research papers in academic journals such as World Development, Social Indicators Research, and coauthored GNH (Gross National Happiness) in Japanese, 2011.
Sustainability through Practice: Examining Waste Diversion Efforts, Barriers and Solutions
Ivana Zelenika
Abstract
The University of British Columbia is matching Metro’s target to divert 70% materials from landfills by 2016 and 80% by 2021. Given that both Metro Vancouver and UBC’s waste diversion rates are currently at 55%, there is a need for research on effective mechanisms and strategies to help achieve the 80% diversion target for the region.
This talk will present research objectives and the theoretical framework of my thesis, research completed to date, as well as research in progress. One goal is to examine the influence of infrastructure design and layout as a pro-environmental behaviour setting strategy with an emphasis on convenience, simplicity and usefulness. The other goal is to examine the key elements that enable behaviour in culture dependant inter-locking arrangements consisting of physical artefacts, meaning and knowledge/ skills. Persistence and consequences of engaging in waste diversion are also explored.
Bio
Started the PhD studies in 2012, working with co-supervision of Dr. Jiaying Zhao and Dr. John Robinson. Prior to coming to UBC completed a Master’s of Environmental Studies at Queen’s University (Kingston), and a B.A. from Carleton University (Ottawa) in Environmental Studies, minor in Political Science. Research interests are in Applied Sustainability, Sustainable Social Change, Biomimicry and Innovation through Collaboration. Research is supported by the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship and the UBC 4 Year Fellowship.
Active member in campus life, I was a member of the Common Energy at UBC and served as a Zero Waste coordinator with Campus Sustainability office for 2 years in a work-learn position. Previously at Queen’s University I was a Sustainability Coordinator for the Graduate Society and helped establish a community garden and bring 11MW of electricity generating PV panels to the University’s portfolio.
City Stories: From narrative to practice in Vancouver’s Olympic Village
Lisa Westerhoff
Abstract:
Vancouver’s Olympic Village is both an iconic development in the City of Vancouver and a globally recognised attempt at creating a sustainable urban community. Its final form as it stands today represents the culmination of nearly 2 decades of planning and design, a process that was fraught with raucous debate and financial woe along the way. But how has the neighbourhood’s vision actually unfolded in practice? In my dissertation (and in this presentation), I tell the story of this unique urban development from the perspective of some of the many voices that have created it: the people who live and work there. By combining narrative with insights and methods from social practice and place theories, I explore how the sustainable intentions of the Olympic Village are playing out in the lives of its residents and managers, which show that the Village’s particular narrative of sustainability has intervened into residents’ and managers’ practices, perceptions and identities in interesting ways. I conclude that while the neighbourhood has been instrumental in pushing sustainability efforts forward, it nevertheless missed key opportunities to address the expectations and experiences of its future inhabitants.
Bio:
Lisa Westerhoff recently defended her PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies at UBC, working under the supervision of John Robinson. Her work interrogates the different narratives of climate change and sustainability adopted by different groups and at different scales, and their implications for citizen engagement and decision making around sustainability in the built environment. Prior to her PhD, Lisa worked as a Geography instructor at the University of Guelph, as well as a researcher on EUR-Adapt, a four-year project on multi-level governance in climate change adaptation at Umeå University in Sweden. She holds an MA and a BA in Geography.
Getting our politicians to implement effective climate policy is inherently difficult. In this talk, Mark Jaccard combines anecdotal and research evidence to develop strategic advice for those seeking effective climate policies. He will cover a range of relevant topics including democratic reforms, institutional design, policy design, policy evaluation, public perceptions, and climate activism.
Bio:
(on Twitter @MarkJaccard and blogging at markjaccard.com)
Mark has been professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, since 1986 – interrupted from 1992-97 while he served as Chair and CEO of the British Columbia Utilities Commission. His PhD is from the Energy Economics and Policy Institute at the University of Grenoble. Internationally, Mark has been involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, and the Global Energy Assessment. Mark’s research and applied focus is on the design and application of energy-economy models, especially for assessing the cost and effectiveness of climate policies. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Research Fellow with the CD Howe Institute, and in 2009 was named BC Academic of the Year by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations. In 2006, his book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, won the Donner Prize for best policy book in Canada.
Modeling Ecosystems: Lessons Learned and the Road Ahead
Villy Christensen
Bio:
Villy Christensen is Professor and Co-Director of UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. He is the lead developer of the Ecopath with Ecosim approach and software, which is used extensively throughout the world for ecosystem-based management of marine and freshwater areas. This work is coordinated through the Ecopath International Research and Development Consortium, which has 24 institutional members, and for which he serves as the Executive Board Chair. He has led more than 50 related training courses and workshops throughout the world, and through this gained considerable experience with the ecology and management of marine ecosystems. He has also authored or co-authored close to 300 publications, including >115 peer reviewed. He currently serves as Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and has been involved in numerous global assessments, e.g., CBD’s Global Biodiversity Outlook, UNEP’s Global Environmental Outlook, EU’s The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, and UN’s Millennium Assessment.
Abstract:
Villy will give a brief and subjective overview of the history of ecosystem modeling, going back to Raymond Lindeman, passing by the International Biological Program, and fast forward with an overview of how foraging arena theory came into the picture. The foraging arena theory has fundamentally improved our capability to model the history of ecosystems, and helped improve our modeling capabilities to the degree that it provides just a little bit of confidence that we may be able to model how our actions may impact ecosystems in the future. He will briefly touch upon where ecosystem modeling is heading, and his own current and coming activities and research interests.
Maery is a Master of Arts student working under the direction of Drs. Terre Satterfield and Nathan Bennett. She entered the interdisciplinary environment of IRES after completing a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from the University of Victoria where her coursework focused on human geography, natural resource management, and environmental sustainability. Her primary research interests include natural resource governance & management and the intersections of perception, livelihoods, and change processes within social-ecological systems.
Marine protected areas (MPAs), increasingly implemented, have produced both positive and negative consequences for adjacent communities. Maery’s current work contributes to research on the human dimensions of conservation by situating MPA governance within a context of broader social-ecological changes affecting coastal communities. Her research is grounded through a qualitative investigation of changes, impacts and adaptations in a fishing village located within a Mexican biosphere reserve and is supported by both the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Mitacs.
Jill Guerra
Bio:
With a background in international development, economics and Latin American studies, Jill has long been studying issues of poverty, inequality and sustainable development – both in the classroom and in the field. In recent years her research focus has narrowed in on the role of the food system in improving, or sadly exacerbating, instances of poverty and inequality around the world. Taking a social-ecological perspective and guided by tenets of food sovereignty and agroecology, her work highlights the connections and trade-offs between social and economic well being like food security or sustainable employment and the challenge of achieving agro-environmental sustainability. Her Master’s research within the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability probes these connections and trade-offs. Through a case study of Brazil’s National School Feeding Program (Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar – PNAE), Jill’s research explores how the incentives within the PNAE can improve the wellbeing of the country’s often marginalized family farmers while also encouraging their transition to organic agriculture and/or agroecology – systems of farming intended to be more environmentally sustainable. Her research employs mixed methods analyzing Brazilian agricultural census data while adding important nuances through in-depth, qualitative interviews conducted with a sample of farmers participating in the program. She hopes that her interdisciplinary research will contribute to growing sustainability literature highlighting the challenges and opportunities for creating a more sustainable and just food system.
Apartment Energy Costs and GHG Emissions Data – Do Buyers Care?
Abstract:
Vancouver, BC, Toronto and Ontario are currently considering legislation to require large building owners to benchmark and publicly release annual energy costs, GHG emissions and related data. These data could inform apartment buyers’ purchase decisions – but there is little robust evidence that they would find it valuable, with Canada’s low electricity, natural gas and emissions costs. Ian’s MSc thesis is assessing whether building energy and GHG emissions benchmarking data communicated through real estate multiple listing websites influence apartment buyers’ purchase criteria and behaviour.
Bio:
Ian Theaker’s engineering career has focused on greening North America’s buildings and communities. As technical problems are now largely solved, he is now studying systemic socio-economic policy that reduces climate impacts of the built environment.
As the Canada Green Building Council’s inaugural Program Manager, Ian lead adaptation of the LEED rating systems for Canada. Other signature efforts include Waterfront Toronto’s climate-positive Green Development Requirements, Infrastructure Ontario’s Building Sustainability Best Practices Manual, the OHSU River Campus (LEED-NC Platinum) and Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Urban Design (AIA Committee on the Environment Top Ten winner) in Portland, Oregon, and Green Building Design Guidelines for the City of Santa Monica.
Ian has served with many volunteer organizations, most recently as a Director CaGBC’s Greater Toronto Chapter and founder of its Advocacy Committee. He’s also served as Governor of the Association of Energy Engineers, BC Chapter, and co-founded Vancouver’s Designers for Social Responsibility and the Southeast False Creek Working Group.
“More precious than gold”: Yukon First Nations and water governance in the context of modern land claims agreements
Nicole Wilson
Abstract:
Water governance is of critical concern to Yukon First Nations, whose health, livelihoods and cultural well being are complexly connected to the waters within their traditional territories. Increasing social and environmental pressures, induced by high rates of resource development (largely mining) and climatic change, underscore the present urgency of protecting First Nations’ socio-cultural relations to water. Modern land claims agreements uniquely shape the water governance landscape of Yukon Territory. Through a twenty-year process of treaty negotiation, First Nations agreed to retain Aboriginal rights and title to less than 10% of the lands within their traditional territory in exchange for partnership in the governance of all Yukon lands and resources. The Umbrella Final Agreement and the 11 treaties, which resulted from the negotiation, express the fundamental principle of co-governance in critical areas such as water.
Through a qualitative case study, this presentation examines the divergence between Yukon First Nation relationships to water and water governance and their ability to influence the process and outcomes of decision-making about water governance despite modern land claims. Analysis reveals that while land claims resulted in a departure from previous governance arrangements, marked most notably by the creation of several co-management boards aimed at fostering shared decision-making, First Nations continue to face regulatory injustices as they navigate a governance network and relationships characterized by asymmetries of power, authority and legitimacy. Specific challenges include a disjuncture between First Nation and ‘settler’ views on water, a high level of distrust, failures of both consultation and respect for the ‘spirit and intent’ of land claims agreements, as well as the enduring legacy of colonialism more broadly. Opportunities nonetheless exist that might be leveraged to enhance First Nations influence over decisions and so strategic realization of goals within and outside of the present system.
Bio:
Nicole’s research focuses on the role of Indigenous peoples in water governance in the transboundary context of the Yukon River Basin, which spans Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia. Her work examines the socio-cultural impacts of hydrologic change and the how adaptive responses to environmental change employed by Indigenous peoples, are constrained or facilitated by the broader water governance context. Her dissertation research builds on existing partnerships with the Yukon River Inter-tribal Watershed Council – a grassroots Indigenous organization comprised of 70 Alaska Native and Canadian First Nations (partner since 2010).
Nicole is both a Vanier and Killam scholar. She is working under the supervision of Terre Satterfield and committee members including Leila Harris, Jordi Honey-Roses (SCARP) and Glen Coulthard (First Nations and Indigenous Studies/Political Science). She is a member of both the EDGES research group and Program on Water Governance. Prior to coming to UBC, she completed her Master’s of Science in Natural Resources at Cornell University. Her MS research examined the impacts of climate change on the subsistence livelihoods of the Koyukon Athapaskan people of Ruby, Alaska. She also holds a BA in Development Studies from the University of Calgary.
Nicole’s seminar will not be filmed.
Enforcement patterns and compliance outcomes in BC: Lessons learned from EAO’s pilot watchdog project
Allison Franko
Abstract:
How can we improve environmental management in BC? In 2011, the Auditor General of BC reported that post-certification monitoring of approved projects was largely absent. In response, the BC Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) implemented a compliance and enforcement (C&E) task force to review newly required self-reports submitted by proponents, conduct inspections, and review inspection reports completed by other agencies on EAO’s behalf. A total of 94 inspections on 40 projects have been conducted between August 2011 and November 2015.
This research examines the potential factors associated with enforcement patterns and compliance outcomes through an analysis of data extracted from government inspection reports; government websites, including EAO’s E-pic and the Legislative Assembly of BC (Hansard) websites; corporate company websites; and online search-engine query results. Although many regulatory theories detail factors that affect compliance, empirical evidence evaluating the effectiveness of enforcement strategies on compliance outcomes is lacking. The more empirical evidence (accompanied by expert elicitation) that can be gathered for different jurisdictions and their contexts, the more likely informed enforcement strategies will be to achieve compliance targets and environmental protection. Considering these issues, this research seeks to provide valuable insight useful for improving where necessary, and/or legitimizing the current C&E strategy based on the relative role of different factors associated with compliance outcomes (good and bad).
Bio:
Allison is an MSc student working under the supervision of Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi. Her research focuses on the effectiveness of follow-up activities for projects certified under the BC Environmental Assessment Act. Allison holds an NSERC Industrial Post-graduate Scholarship. Since receiving her BA in Environmental Geography from UBC in 2012, she has been working for a consulting firm on Canadian environmental assessments under provincial and federal jurisdictions.
The Properties of Territory and Terrain: Himalayan Belongings after the 2015 Earthquakes
Sara Shneiderman, Assistant Professor in Anthropology and the Institute of Asian Research
Abstract:
This presentation explores how natural disasters such as earthquakes reshape human experience, drawing upon long-standing ethnographic research in areas of Nepal deeply affected by the Spring 2015 earthquakes. To do so, we must engage with the locality of terrain: Where are the landslide zones? Which road is passable? Where has the water source been dammed? But at the same time, humanitarian responses rely upon national and transnational networks, with flows of money and information mediated by the politics of territory and sovereignty: Who can raise funds? Where will they be deposited? Who is responsible for ensuring consistent needs assessment across the disaster zone, and organizing coordinated responses? Taken together, these questions begin to suggest how people affected by such events are compelled to reorient practices of place and belonging in relation to suddenly changed landscapes, both environmental and political.
This work-in-progress presentation joins my ongoing research about state restructuring in Nepal and Himalayan notions of “territory”—a concept that in English links the multiple scales of individual land-ownership, communal emplacement in locality, and belonging and ownership of sovereign space at the national level—with recent firsthand observations of life in Nepal’s central-eastern Dolakha district after the earthquake. I welcome feedback as I work toward developing new frameworks for analysis that can accommodate both place and resource-based understandings of such dynamics and sociocultural ones.
Bio:
Sara Shneiderman is Assistant Professor in Anthropology and the Institute of Asian Research at UBC. A socio-cultural anthropologist working in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India, and China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region, her research explores the relationships between political discourse, ritual action, and cross-border mobility in producing ethnic identities and shaping social transformation. She is the author of Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Current research projects include an ethnography of “post-conflict” state restructuring in Nepal, with a focus on citizenship, territory, and religiosity, and an exploration of trans-Himalayan citizenship across the historical and contemporary borders of India, China, and Nepal.
