Chat Session with prof. Ron Mitchell (April 4, 2004)

alexeis : Hello. Today's chat session is with professor Ronald Mitchell

Lavrinenko : Hello from Saratov , Alexei! When we start?

alexeis : We start in about 5 minutes

Mitchell : Hi, Alexei, I am now here.

alexeis : Hi Ron, we are waiting for students to join the chat and should be ready to begin in a couple of minutes

Samoilova : Anna Smirnova: hello dear participants! YSU is here

alexeis : I think, not to lose time, we can begin now with our first question.

alexeis : Please ask one question at a time

alexeis : Let's start with Yaroslavl . Your question please

Samoilova : OK. OUr first question is: The majority of actions and measures in the environmental protection are based on prohibitions. According to the prospect theory , people are more inclined to risk when they lose something . And actions connected with the prohibitions mean losses to the people who are forbidden to do something. For example to bury waste products. That is to say restrictions and prohibitions provoke much more violations. Please, comment how effective prohibitions as a preventive measure in environment protection.

alexeis : PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS. QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED

Mitchell : Very interesting question. Let me respond. But first, two things to clarify my responses. I will put ... when I will continue to answer the question and [end] when I have completed a question ...

Agaltsova : Hello, dear partners. We are very glad to see you here.

Mitchell : So, on prospect theory, that is a nice connection. I would have to give it more thought, but one thought about that is thinking that, for rules that prohibit behavior compliance is always possible but unlikely, ie, people are capable of compliance (they are doing something so they can always stop)....

Demeneva : Greatings from Chelyabinsk !!!

Mitchell : whereas with rules that require behavior, there are two sources of noncompliance -- people don't want to comply (lack of incentives) or people can't comply (lack of capacity). But, I think the issue of prospect theory and how people frame gains vs. losses would also be an important issue. I just have not spent time thinking about that. If you are interested in these issues, however, you might look for an article by Jeff Berejikian in American Political Science Review that discusses prospect theory and the Montreal Protocol.[end]

alexeis : NEXT QUESTION: SARATOV STATE UNIVERSITY PLEASE

Lavrinenko : How do you think, professor Mitchell, genetically modifying products are a problem of environment?

alexeis : PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS. QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED

Ronshina : How should we regard environmental conflicts that turn out in practise to be struggle over power? Does it often happens or not?

alexeis : ONE QUESTION AT A TIME PLEASE.

Mitchell : In response to Lavrinenko: GMOs are an interesting case because they appear to run some risk of causing environmental harm by either inter-breeding or overtaking natural varieties. However, there is also the issue that, GMOs are very likely to be developed so that they increase yields of agriculturally valuable plants ...

Mitchell : ... and so, you have to ask a poor farmer in a developing country whether they want a larger yield today so they can feed their family even at the risk of harming the environment. I think many poor farmers would say, I cannot worry about the future because I have to worry about dinner today, and many other people might agree with that. So, I think there is a need to find ways that can feed people without harming the environment, but that is hard to find the incentives for. [end]

Next I will answer Ronshina's question...

alexeis : STUDENTS: PLEASE REMEMBER WHEN ... IS USED- THE ANSWER IS NOT COMPLETE. WHEN YOU SEE 'END' , WATCH FOR MY CALL ON WHO IS NEXT

Mitchell : On Ronshina: I would imagine that many, if not all, environmental conflicts have at least some important political aspects involving struggles over power. I think where much creative energy is being used is finding out how to accept that power is important in politics and to find ways to get powerful actors to want to do things to protect the environment. So, for example, you now see Merck pharmaceutical corporation giving money to Costa Rica for biodiversity conservation because they want to retain biodiversity so they can reap pharmaceutical rewards. That seems a good and realistic option for environmental protection, even if not the best one we might imagine in a "perfect" world. [end]

alexeis : CHELYABINSK : PLEASE ASK YOUR QUESTION NOW

Yakovleva : SUSU:What do you think of the concept of sustainable development: whether it is possible to carry it out, if yes, then what influence it can render on the world?

alexeis : QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

Mitchell : On Yakovleva: Sustainable development is quite difficult I think. My major concern is that development to most people means, if anything, "growth" in the sense of more tomorrow than today. But such growth is antithetical, I believe, to environmental protection and sustainability. In the end, if we have more people on the earth and each of them wants more for themselves and a better life for their children, than we will have 8, 10, and 12 billion people on the earth, each consuming resources increasingly in the way Americans do (which is very resource consuming compared to others) and so ...

Mitchell : ... the real question then is whether we can convince people that "less is better." I think that is difficult to do. If it is possible, it will take many years of many people working together to say (and it is hard to imagine today) "I want my children, if I have any, to grow up so that they want to live a simpler and less resource-intensive lifestyle than I have." At present, very few people are thinking that way, but I believe that that is the direction we must go if we are to take sustainable development seriously. [END]

alexeis : NEXT QUESTION: FROM UNIVERSITIES OTHER THAN SARATOV, SUSU AND YSU. WHO ELSE IS IN THE ROOM AND HAS NOT HAD A CHANCE TO ASK THEIR QUESTION? EKATERINBURG? TYUMEN ? BLAGOVESCHENSK?

Taumova : Hello!How are you?Will you be so kind to answer my question?!Do you consider reverse environmental imperialism to become a real pressure point, that can lead to making states become bankrupt and then starting from scratch?

alexeis : TAUMOVA: WHICH UNIVERSITY YOU ARE FROM?

alexeis : QESTION IS BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

Taumova : from USU

alexeis : THANKS

Mitchell : To Taumova: I am not sure what you mean by environmental imperialism exactly but let me try to respond. If environmental imperialism is something like industrialized countries (US, Japan, EU) blocking products from developing countries because they are not produced "environmentally" than there is some possibility that those poor countries will do even worse than they are today and become bankrupt, as you suggest. But...

Mitchell : I think the far more likely outcome is that the industrialized countries do not really push environmental protection at all and instead use environmental concerns as a form of trade protectionism. Thus, for example, the US and EU have very large subsidies for agricultural products, especially sugar, that have bad environmental consequences in the industrialized countries but also harm farmers and development in developing countries. So, I guess I think it is very complex but the main point is that very few countries allow environmental issues to have any significant influence on their foreign policies, so my guess is that "environmental" imperialism is quite rare, whereas economic or military imperialism may be more common. [END]

alexeis : NEXT QUESTION: YAROSLAVL STATE UNIVERSITY

alexeis : SO WE HAVE YAROSLAVL , SARATOV , SUSU, USU. ANY SCHOOLS I MISSED?

Salva : What is your opinion: do natural resources contribute to the development of a state, country or become brake , obstacle in its economic and socio-political development ( there is viewpoint that natural resources do not help Russia to develop hi tech, to restructure its import-export orientation.

alexeis : YAROSLAVL : YOUR QUESTION PLEASE

alexeis : QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

Mitchell : To Salva: This is an interesting question. I do not know much about this, but there are important issues regarding what I believe has been called the "resource curse" which is related to the dynamics you discuss. As you note, natural resources may be used in an extractive way, especially in international competition with other states that have those resources....

Mitchell : but my sense is that more of this has to do with the different timing of development trajectories and the different strategies of governments. Thus, we might not have expected the Newly Industrialized Countries like Korea and Taiwan to have developed as much as they did. So, I believe it is a combination of what resources are avaiable and what the policy of thte government is. [END]

alexeis : SARATOV : YOUR QUESTION PLEASE

Reshetova : Are there countries with closed economy? if yes is their environment better then with those with Free Trade?

alexeis : QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

Mitchell : On Reshetova: Another good question. I always think that there are at least two sets of good cases to evaluate if free trade harms the environment.

First, consider Cuba . Its economy was already quite closed because of the American embargo. Then, in addition, when the Soviet Union came to an end, Cuba was even more isolated economically. If the "free trade harms the environment" argument is correct, then Cuba should have a very good environment than most countries, and it should have gotten better after the end of the Soviet Union ...

Mitchell : Second, consider the European Union and its members. Since the EU is the quintessential case of free trade, if the "free trade harms the environment" argument is correct, then the environment in every country that has joined the EU should have gotten worse once it joined.

Of course, you would also need to account for the fact that the EU is not just free trade but also has many environmental rules, but at least these would be the cases you would want to look at.[END]

alexeis : CHELYABINSK : YOUR QUESTION PLEASE

alexeis : CHELYABINSK : YOUR QUESTION PLEASE

alexeis : USU: YOUR QUESTION PLEASE.

Taumova : USU: What do you think of the Roosevelt 's conservation policy?Was it a new level of observing ecological problems, improving the situation in ecological field or just a precondition to to fiture research, movement?

Agaltsova : SUSU: How do you think what are the environmental consequences for USA now, after complying the NAFTA? Has there been any changes in environmental sphere?

alexeis : QUESTIOS ARE BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

Mitchell : On Taumova: Roosevelt was a visionary in terms of natural resource conservation, but it was very early and there are many aspects of it which were not fully developed as "environmentalism" as we know it today. [Remember that Roosevelt was quite a hunter, for example.] But it certainly did lay the foundation for later development, just as Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring did. [END] To Agaltsova's question...

Mitchell : On Agaltsova: I have not carefully studied the effects of NAFTA on the US environment. My sense, based on theory not evidence, is that the environmental consequences of NAFTA are likely to be quite complex. That is, more goods are being used and that means more resources are used, but each thing produced is produced more efficiently, and so less resources per product are being used. Also, of course, NAFTA and free trade generally redistributes WHERE things are produced and where pollution ends up (and not always in the poorer country). However, I guess my general sense would be that the AMERICAN and CANADIAN environment has probably been improved slightly by NAFTA if only because tight American and Canadian environmental laws have maintained environmental protection in the US while some manufacturers have moved elsewhere. On the other hand, the Mexican environment MAY have been improved to the extent that Mexican environmental laws have been tightened up and better enforced in response to NAFTA. Those are the effects I would look for in any case, but I do not have any data on these issues - my apologies.[end]

Taumova : USU:Thank you for answering our questions!It was really helpful and fascinating! And now we have to go!Thank you!!!

alexeis : NEXT QUESTION: YAROSLAVL PLEASE

Samoilova : YSU: How effective the scheme of natural resources - the depth belong to the state and the excavated products belong to private persons - for sustainable usage of mineral resources?

alexeis : QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS. SARATOV , YOUR QUESTION IS NEXT

Lavrinenko : Saratov : Prof. Mitchell, you tell us many about environmental researches. But what about researches of Stanford? Thanks.

alexeis : SARATOV ; PLEASE CLARIFY YOUR QUESTION.

Lavrinenko : Do Stanford Univ.make researches concerning environment?

Mitchell : On Samoilova: It seems to me that a scheme in which excavated natural resources are private property would generally not work well because there are unlikely to be incentives for the private person to preserve those resources. Instead they have incentives to extract and sell them as quickly as possible. This is true, I think for NONrenewable resources like minerals or oil. But it would be slightly different for renewable resources like trees or fish or even, perhaps, whales. In those cases, allowing privatization may be a reasonable policy for preventing over use of the commons, which is what state ownership amounts to. There is much writing on these issues with respect to Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons and the various responses to it.[END]

And, yes, as Alexei notes, I would need clarification to answer Saratov 's question.

Mitchell : On Lavrinenko: now I can respond - one second...

Mitchell : There are many, many researchers at Stanford doing environmental research - they are truly amazing in all sorts of areas. You can go to http://environment.stanford.edu/ and find links to all sorts of research that is being done there.

Copy this link and use it after the chat is over:

http://environment.stanford.edu/

[end]

alexeis : we have time for couple more questions. SUSU, your question please

Chistokhina : Susu: How do you think if US as Superstate can be threat to environmental security?

alexeis : SUSU , PLEASE ASK YOUR QUESTION

alexeis : QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED. PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

alexeis : YAROSLAVL AND SARATOV : PLEASE PREPARE TWO LAST QUESTIONS

Mitchell : On SUSU: The largest environmental threat posed by the US as a superstate is, I believe, by demonstrating our indifference to environmental issues. For example, to the extent the US is now saying "we don't care about climate change and global warming" than other countries are likely, and with reason, to say "well, if the US doesn't do something than we can't succeed so it would be stupid for us to do anything." ...

Kalinina : What are the most dffective international monitoring systems?

Mitchell : It is also important to note that the US as a superstate also has the potential to be a big leader for positive change - to promote environmental technology development, to help with different policy approaches (environmental taxes, reducing environmentally-damaging subsidies, etc.). So, there is an opportunity here we are missing. To the extent the US considers to go about "business as usual" as if we do not need to worry about the environmental impacts of our behavior, I think the US does considerable damage directly (because Americans use so many resources) and indirectly because we don't show leadership for other countries to follow and set good environmental norms through our behavior. [end]

alexeis : Kalinina: What are the most dffective international monitoring systems?

alexeis : QUESTION IS BEING ANSWERED PLEASE HOLD YOUR COMMENTS

Mitchell : On Kalinina: There are not many environmental monitoring systems, but my guess of the most effective would be the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution treaty which has very good data on air pollution among countries that are members of that treaty. You might look at their data on air pollution at:

http://webdab.emep.int/

[end]

alexeis : I would like thank prof. MItchell for his time and very interesting and stimulating answeres to our questions. This exchange of ideas and perspexctives is a very important part of the IDL program. I hope that students had a chance to ask their questions and satisfy their curiosity. Thank you all for participating and good luck with upcoming exams

Mitchell : Yes, thank you for the interesting questions. This was a very effective chat, I think. Best of luck with your exams.

Samoilova : YSU: Thank you everyone and especially great thanks to Professor Mitchell!

Agaltsova : Bye to all! It was effective and usefull to chat with all of you today!

Mitchell : Goodbye, all. [end]

Lavrinenko : Thank you very much for interesting and much useful chat!Good luck!

Chistokhina : Good bye. Our discussion was very intresting. Big thanks for all.

Demeneva : Thank you for the interesting chat! Bue for all.

Yakovleva : SUSU:Thanks everybody for an interesting discussion, especially to Prof. Mitchell

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