Special Issue on the Environment
Director’s Note ~ Special Volume / Fall 2008
It’s been just 46 years since the publication of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and only 36 years since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the two signal events that most observers would identify as the modern beginning of concerns for the environment. In those intervening years, science, politics, and technology have converged to teach us much more about the range and magnitude of environmental threats, to achieve essential consensus on many of them, to move environmental concerns from the periphery of public awareness to a relatively central, broad, and international concern, and even to provide the technologies that could help us deal with the challenges.
On the other hand, we have not yet achieved the political consensus nor found the diplomatic and domestic policy instruments for doing something—or enough—about these threats. So the debate today is very much at the intersection of science and technology on the one hand and public policy on the other. It is a debate complicated by three important considerations. First, as our scientific knowledge has advanced, and the closely related field of ecology has matured, our concepts about what constitutes “the environment” and what threatens it have broadened considerably, encompassing an increasing number of issues. Second, the very fact that we have become so aware of environmental phenomena has stimulated a vastly broadened discussion of the cultural, ethical, economic, and security issues that link to the environment. And, third, as with most broad issues that society confronts, there are trade-offs between environmental protection and other societal goods, most particularly those associated with the economy—development in the less developed regions of the world; energy consumption throughout the world; and the use of natural resources.
The students at the Bologna Center who, for some ten years, have produced the SAIS Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs, this year undertook to join the debate with this special issue of the Journal. I am delighted that they have done so. These students, the leaders of the next generation will, perforce, take on the responsibility for dealing with the challenges that environmental protection presents, and this is an appropriate time for them to join the fray. They have put together an interesting, informative, and rich set of articles, drawing on the insights of scholars in the field, the fresh ideas of their own peers, and the thoughtful work of all of the authors.
This special issue would not have been possible without the generous support of alumnus Karl Homberg (BC ’67), who recently established the Karl Homberg Environmental Policy Studies Program at the Bologna Center. In fact, this is the first activity supported by the Program and it signals our intention to give increasing attention to the environment in our course work, in our seminar programs, and in our policy research. We share with Karl the conviction that few issues are more important in international affairs today than the environment and we are truly grateful that he has been willing to help the Center and its present and future students to focus their efforts on meeting the challenges it presents.
Kenneth H. Keller
Bologna Center Director
