Kaltura Video
Climate Change in the Great Lakes Basin: Policy Options and Public Opinion
Date & time
Feb 21, 2011,
4:00-5:30 pm EST
Location
Free and open to the public.
Panelists:
Christopher Borick
Professor and Director, Muhlenberg Institute of Public Opinion, Muhlenberg College
Erick Lachapelle
Départment de science politique, Université de Montréal
Barry Rabe
Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan
Moderator:
Don Scavia
Director, Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute, University of Michigan
For more information visit www.closup.umich.edu or call 734-647-4091.
Abstract
Leadership has changed in Michigan and many other jurisdictions in the Great Lakes Basin. One immediate challenge for incoming governors and premiers will be deciding how to proceed with existing state, provincial and regional commitments in climate and energy policy. This panel will review current policy commitments and provide an overview of public opinion on climate change and public policy options. This analysis will consider survey samples from national audiences in the United States and Canada as well as more localized audiences in Michigan and Ontario.
Christopher P. Borick is a political scientist and Director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. He is a nationally recognized public opinion researcher who has conducted over 200 large-scale public opinion surveys during the past fifteen years. The results of these surveys have appeared in numerous periodicals including Time Magazine, The Wall St Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. He has also provided analysis for the BBC, National Public Radio, PBS, CBS News and NBC Nightly News and had his survey results aired on, CNN, FOX News and C-Span. During his career he has conducted surveys for a variety of government agencies and organizations including the Center for Disease Control, The United Way, Wisconsin Public Radio, The Wisconsin Department of Commerce, the Oneida Indian Nation, The U.S. Department of Labor, and Habitat for Humanity. Dr. Borick currently conducts surveys for the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He has served as President of the Wisconsin Political Science Association, and as the Director of the St. Norbert College Survey Center.
Professor Borick received his undergraduate education at The Pennsylvania State University and a Masters Degree from East Stroudsburg University. He completed his doctoral work at The State University of New York at Binghamton in the area of public policy analysis. He has government experience at both the federal and local levels, including positions with the Internal Revenue Service and Monroe County Pennsylvania Planning Commission. He has published and presented over thirty articles and four books in the area of public policy and public opinion, and has held teaching positions at The State University of New York at Cortland, St. Norbert College, Lehigh University, and currently at Muhlenberg College. He has won numerous teaching awards during his career, most recently receiving The Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award at Muhlenberg College in 2006. He and his wife Lisa have two children, Sam who is eleven and John who is eight.
Erick Lachapelle joined the faculty of the University of Montreal in August of 2010. His thesis, entitled 'Energy Security and Climate Change Policy in the OECD: the Political Economy of Carbon-Energy Taxation' examines cross-national variance in rates of carbon-energy taxation across 21 OECD countries. In addition to on-going research on the comparative politics of carbon pricing, he is currently conducting research on the politics of scientific expertise, and public attitudes toward climate change policy.
He completed a Bachelor of Social Science at the University of Ottawa and he holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto. Lachapelle has worked for various government departments, including Natural Resources Canada, and a not-for-profit think-tank, the Public Policy Forum. He has organized several conferences on environmental policy, including the Sustainable Prosperity Conference Series in Montreal. He is an associate member of the Sustainable Prosperity Research network (SP), the Centre for International Peace and Security (CEPSI), as well as the Centre for International Research on the Environment (CDERIE) in Montreal. In addition to numerous government and public policy reports, he has published and presented articles on regionalism, Canada-U.S. relations, North American integration, the political economy of carbon pricing, and the comparative politics of climate change policy. His work has appeared in Canadian Foreign Policy and the Canadian Review of Constitutional Studies.
Barry Rabe is a Professor of Public Policy in the Ford School and also holds appointments in the School of Natural Resources and Environment, and the Program in the Environment. He is a non-resident senior fellow in the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. Much of his recent research examines state and regional development of policies to reduce greenhouse gases, which has been conducted in collaboration with the Brookings Institution, the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. In 2006, Rabe became the first social scientist to receive a Climate Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in recognition of his contribution to both scholarship and policy making. Recent publications include a 2004 Brookings book, Statehouse and Greenhouse: The Evolving Politics of American Climate Change Policy, which received the 2005 Lynton Keith Caldwell Award from the American Political Science Association in recognition of the best book published on environmental politics and policy in the past three years.
Rabe has also written extensively about such topics as nuclear and hazardous waste management, cross-border and cross-media transfer of pollutants in federal regulatory systems, and the conditions necessary to achieve intergovernmental cooperation in the implementation of federal grant and regulatory programs. During the 2008-09 year, he was a visiting professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, where he organized the National Conference on Climate Governance and edited a series of subsequent publications. In 2004, he completed a ten-year term as editor of the American Governance and Public Policy book series for Georgetown University Press. In 2004-05, he served as president of the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. At the University of Michigan, he previously served as Director of the Program in the Environment and an Interim Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment. In 2007, he received the Daniel Elazar Award for Career Contribution to the Study of Federalism from the American Political Science Association. In 2009, he was named a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Don Scavia is the Graham Family Professor of Sustainability and professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also Director of the Graham Sustainability Institute and Special Counsel to the U-M President for Sustainability where he leads efforts to engage U-M's full multidisciplinary research and educational assets to support sustainable communities, ecosystems, and economies. Scavia and his students combine numerical models, laboratory and field work, and assessments to improve the understanding of interactions between human activities on land and their impacts on coastal marine and freshwater ecosystems. Most of his work has focused on impacts on the iconic Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and Great Lakes. His research and teaching support development and application of Integrated Assessment as a tool to bring together natural systems science, social science, engineering, and environmental policy making.
He served on the NRC Committee on Missouri River Sediment Management Issues, and continues to serve on Advisory Boards for the Environmental Law and Policy Center, the National Wildlife Federation Great Lakes Program, North American Nitrogen Center, and as Science Advisor to the Healing our Waters Great Lakes Coalition. At U-M, he also serves on the Executive Committee for the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, Risk Science Center, and the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, among others. He has been SNRE Associate Dean for Research, Director of the Michigan Sea Grant Program, Director of the Cooperative Institute for Limnology and Ecosystems Research, Associate Editor for Estuaries and Coasts; Associate Editor for Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, and has served on the Boards of Directors for the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and the International Association for Great Lakes Research. He has published over 100 articles in the primary literature and books, co-edited two books, and led development of dozens of interagency scientific assessments and program development plans.
Sponsored by the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP), Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute. Support provided by the Ford School's Hooker-Cook-DeVos Outreach Fund.