Transcript Slide 1

Playing it Forward: Path Dependency, Progressive Incrementalism,
and the Super Wicked Problem of Global Climate Change
EPA Speaker – 19 May, 2010 – by Professor Benjamin Cashore
Climate change science is well developed, relatively coherent in terms of theory and method, and widely seen as appropriate to
measure, analyze and assess what we do, and don’t know, about the problem. By comparison, social scientific research on climate
change is recent, far less coherent, and lacks consensus on either epistemological or substantive grounds. The most policy relevant
work tends either towards analyses of costs and benefits of particular policy options, without assessments of how such policies are
likely to develop in practice, or attempts to draw lessons by looking backwards to past institutional successes or failures. While this
research has value, we argue it is poorly suited for developing and assessing which policies are likely to work in practice or to create
the solutions they aim for.
To remedy this lacuna, we address three questions: How should we characterize climate change in policy terms? What are the
appropriate analytical tools to address such problems? What do those tools tell us about the types of policies that are likely to
succeed or fail in reducing greenhouse gas emissions?
Benjamin Cashore is Professor of Environmental Governance & Political
Science at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
He is Director of the Yale Program on Forest Policy and Governance
and is courtesy joint appointed in Yale’s Department of Political Science.
When and where
Contact
Date:
Wednesday 19 May, 2010
Elefteria Vasileiadou
Time:
12.30 – 13.30
Place:
Room C541/543
IVM, W&N building, VU Campus
(entrance via De Boelelaan 1085)
Institute for Environmental Studies
VU University Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam
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T 020-5989578
E [email protected]
IVM INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
VU University Amsterdam
De Boelelaan 1085 (visiting address)
De Boelelaan 1087 (postal address)
1081 HV Amsterdam
t +31-20-5989 555
f +31-20-5989 553
e [email protected]
i http://www.ivm.vu.nl