I would like to segregate my comment in two sections:
Private Sector- I believe that privately-owned organizations’ managers and environmental planners should try to engage the public, regardless of their knowledge of science. As the articles demonstrated time and time again, environmental policy is largely not the result of effective scientific measures; but rather the success of it rests in ethics and culture. Thus, scientific facts may not, or perhaps should not, create sustainable environmental policy. Also, engaging the public consumes a lot of resources- mainly money and time. The cost of civic participation is perhaps not as expensive in the private sector as in the public sector, for two reasons. First, a private corporation is better able to mobilize citizens because it was created by the people, for the people. Thus, by its definition, it attracts and maintains more specific civic interests than the government. Furthermore, through sponsorships or income, private organization are better at raising revenue and will thus have the means and established networks to engage public opinion.
Public Sector- because all taxpayers’ money is forced to go into environmental planning, I believe it should remain objective as possible. That is, PUBLIC institutions should rely on science and not special interests- it simply wouldn’t be fair otherwise. Furthermore, the costs of the government to mobilize people is too costly, another burden taxpayers should not have to pay. The consequence of doing so may result in ineffective environmental policy (but, honestly, so can private interests); however, with my plan, passionate private institutions would mobilize people, and in turn, mobilize government through legislation to pick up where government-owned institutions lack. In short, we are all forced to pay tax money, and yes, some of the benefits of environmental policy are diffuse so all citizens should be charged for this positive externality; however, the matter remains that not all environmental policy is effective and necessary, so taxpayers should not pay the slack. Furthermore, public institutions are not nearly as adaptable as private. Thus, I believe ineffective environmental policy has been made because of the flaws inherent in a public system. Private institutions are more able to adapt, gauge, and mobilize. This demonstrates the need to separate the roles of the private and public environmental institutions.
The Introduction
12 years ago
I like your comment, specially the one about the need to address the public interest. However, it is difficult to determine what is in "public" interest. It is worse if we know that there are several people affected by an action and they are going to have common and opposing interests. If we take the "economic" and rationalistic view, the decision should focus on achieving the best interest for all that maximizes the output and does not make anyone worse in the process.............. But for that we do not need public input.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in my mind, that is not achieving the public interest; the description above leads to power trips and someone determining what is best. The public interest is going to be the process of acknowledging the NET interest of the public, and the only way to find that SUM is to hear and educate others and yourself on their interests.
We do not all know it all, and some interest-groups are just very good and making their interest public and "loud". We need, as seekers of the public interest, to bring all the common, opposing and group interests to the "table" and build a NET that all can support. It is not an easy task.
I really liked how you separated the sectors into Private and Public. Better yet, their different approaches to public involvement. I do think that the private practices may have better success with the participation proccess but time and money is still an issue for them. Involving the public in the process is neccessary, thus public and private need to make the attempt to find ways to involve the public no matter what the cost.
ReplyDeleteIt has been noted that with public involvement, the project at hand can be seen as more suitable to the public. Although conflict is almost always included in these involvement processes due to numerous different values, by using the public a mutually acceptable outcome can be found, granting a strong relationship between the public and the project leaders. Public involvement should be seen as an integral part of the planning process.
I think that no matter public or private, our goal is should be to inform the public, give them the knowledge that they need to assist in the outcome of our environmental projects at hand. When we look at cost, it is assumed that we look at the monetary costs of "right now" and push projects further faster, without looking at the environmental costs of the future. There needs to be a compromise between environmental and economic costs.
Good Job on your analysis. I agree that the interests of public and private agencies are different.
I agree with your point that it is expensive to educate the public. You bring up an interesting idea that if privately-owned companies played a role in educating the public it would save the public valuable resources. I think in some cases a private organization could be very effective with educating the public on certain issues. However, do you have any concerns that a private organization might have their own agenda and present information in a skewed manor? In my post, I mentioned that I think regarding the environment a profit-based company might try to persuade the public that a certain action would have economic effects that would make a certain environmental action not worth and risk public safety for their own benefit. Do you think that this is a concern? Great Post - I enjoyed it!
ReplyDeleteI agree, Kathryn this was a great post. I did enjoy your choice word "force" when it came to taxes. No one enjoys paying taxes but it can help provide for our country. In addition even though it can be costly to educate citizens about policy it is important. Otherwise we could get into the habit of letting private companies handle environmental issues with their own agendas. Or we begin to operate with a government that acts with our money without the imput of the citizens. And I fully understand this happens on a daily basis anyway but by allowing the government to take our money and then not give us even a little information about what they are doing with it (Think 1st bailout/Bush) can be a scary future.
ReplyDelete:)
Alicia