Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks

"This two-volume analysis of three environmental issues in ten countries over several decades represents an incredible achievement of collaborative scholarship. Out of it has emerged the most detailed analysis of social learning--changes in people's understanding of each issue's causes, impacts, and policy options--and the role of scientists, the media, governmental institutions, and interest groups in creating these changes. This is clearly a tour de force in the policy learning literature."
- Paul Sabatier, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis

"The findings of this vast study have fascinating and significant implications for scholarship and public policy. It is a must read for anyone who is interested in constructively addressing global environmental problems."
- Harold K. Jacobson, Jesse Siddal Reeves Professor of Political Science, Senior Research Scientist, and Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Michigan

"Efforts to illuminate the interplay between ideas and human actions will occupy us for the indefinite future. But these long-awaited volumes not only break new ground in this area; they literally define the field with regard to global environmental issues."
- Oran R. Young, Director, Institute on International Environmental Governance, Dartmouth College

"A landmark achievement. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks is the best, most comprehensive, and most in-depth analysis of humanity's first steps in the process of learning how to manage global environmental change. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, this study sets the standard for all future multidisciplinary scientific research on the complex interaction between knowledge, power, society, and the global environment."
- Emanuel Adler, Department of International Relations, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

"Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks is an impressively detailed analysis of policy change, across many countries and through global institutions, on three key environmental issues. It will stand as a monument to highly collaborative interdisciplinary research in the social sciences."
- Robert O. Keohane, James B. Duke Professor of Political Science, Duke University

"This overview of how some of the most critical regional and global problems have been handled internationally and in selected nations is illuminating reading. Much can be learned from it by the whole spectrum of actors, from policy makers to expert environmental scientists."
- Paul Crutzen, Nobel Laureate, Atmospheric Chemistry Division, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

"This book is an extremely valuable reference for scientists like myself who become involved with broad assessments of environmental problems and thus require appropriate historical, social, and political perspectives that transcend the natural sciences."
- Mario Molina, Nobel Laureate, Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"There are multiple ways the authors could have organized the information presented here, and one of the most important aspects of this project may be what s not reported. So much work, for so many years, went into gathering systematic data for this study that the archives, stored at Harvard University, are likely to be invaluable to future generations of dissertation writers. Impelled perhaps by publishing necessity or the attention spans of potential readers, the authors and editors have had to seriously simplify the presentation of materials, and have taken only two passes of what could have been many through the information (by country and by function). By doing so they have demonstrated precisely what their volumes overall argue: How information is presented influences precisely what you can do with it. With these volumes, our understanding of the geography of global atmospheric problems expands considerably."
- DeSombre, Elizabeth R. 2002. "A Review of Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, vols. 1 & 2." American Political Science Review 96 (3): 681-682.

"This landmark study of the interaction between human societies and the environment is a result of a major international social scientific project on environmental change. The main contribution of this research to the advancement of knowledge on global environmental risks is related to the systematic examination of cross-arena and cross-issue interactions. The two chapters on former socialist countries are particularly revealing and fill the gap in literature on Eastern European countries' approaches to global environmental issues. The customary highly praising back cover "blurbs" are fully justified here."
- Jehlicka, Petr. 2002. "Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks Volume 1/Volume 2 (Book)." Journal of International Relations & Development 5 (4): 473-477.

"This two-volume set identifies, explores, and maps an exciting new frontier in the social science of global environmental politics. The project is truly staggering in scope. The research agenda delineated in the introduction, the conclusion, and the two cross-cutting chapters should become a starting point for scholars and graduate students interested in global environmental politics. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks identifies critical questions, interesting themes, provocative hypotheses, tantalizing parallels, and surprising contrasts regarding how national and international society make progress in global environmental management. It brings together compelling analytic tools; provides rich accounts of development of both science and politics in ozone depletion, acid rain, and climate change; and develops useful insights into how and why these issues developed as they did. Most importantly, it focuses our attention not only on how we manage global environmental risks but on the higher level phenomena of social learning, i.e., how—at a societal level—we improve our ability to manage those risks."
- Mitchell, Ronald B. 2002. "Book Review: The Social Learning Group. 2001. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, vols. 1 & 2." Global Environmental Politics 2 (2): 131-133.

"What renders the book outstanding is the attempt to simultaneously analyze the influence of ideas, interests, institutions, actors, and their interactions on the actual practices which societies addressed these issues. in summary, the book must be seen as a milestone in the study of social learning in the field of global environmental problems. It excels through its thorough analyses based on a clear an methodologically reflected conceptual framework, through its international scope, through its innovative cross-cutting analysis of the different cases and the different management functions and through the internal coherence throughout the contributions. The Social Learning Group produced a must-read for anybody interested in international environmental policy."
- Siebenhüner, B. 2002. "Review of: Learning to manage global environmental risks: a comparative history of social responses to climate change, ozone depletion and acid rain." Ecological Economics 42 (3): 495-497.

"These two volumes address a considerable number of difficult issues in a pragmatic easy-to-read format. [They] form an extremely valuable reference for scientists who become involved with broad assessments of environmental problems and thus require appropriate historical, social, and political perspectives that transcend natural sciences. At GBP 20.50 per volume they are amazing good value for money."
- Richardson, Mervyn. 2002. "Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks (Book)." International Journal of Environmental Studies: Sections A & B 59 (6): 728-731.

"This vast, dense, and richly engaging study examines long-term policy trajectories on acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion, and climate change in several countries. In doing so, it breaks important new ground in the effort to understand national responses to global challenges. The unprecedented complexity of global environmental change demands new models of scholarly collaboration as well as new forms of knowledge integration, a direction in which these volumes take a strong and confident step."
- Conca, Ken. 2002. "New Publications: Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks (2 vols)." Environmental Change and Security Project Report 8:179-181.

"The value of these two volumes is the global perspective that they provide. Both volumes are useful and important works of scholarship and will prove to be very valuable additions to our body of environmental management knowledge."
- Klancko, Robert John. 2002. "Book Reviews: Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, Volumes 1 and 2." Environmental Practice 4 (2) (June): 115-117.

Anonymous. 2002. "Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 83 (8): 1202.

Anonymous. 2002. "Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks (Book)." ISIS: Journal of the History of Science in Society 93 (3): 551-552.

Anonymous. 2002. "Social Learning Group. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks. Volume 1." Journal of Economic Literature 40 (3): 1228.

Anonymous. 2002. "Social Learning Group. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks. Volume 2." Journal of Economic Literature 40 (3): 1229.

Anonymous. 2002. "The Social Learning Group. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, volumes 1 and 2." Public Administration Review 62 (3): 384.

Dowlatabadi, Hadi. 2003. "Review of: Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks Volume 1: A Comparative History of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and Acid Rain Volume 2: A Functional Analysis of Social Responses to Climate Change, Ozone Depletion, and ..." Climate Policy 3 (3): 315-318.

Luhmann, Hans-Jochen. 2003. "How states discover environmental problems and how they react to them. Review of Social Learning Group (Ed.): Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks / P. Harremoës et al.: The Precautionary Principle in the 20th Century." GAIA - Ecological Perspectives in Science, Humanities, and Economics 12 (1): 53-54. In German.

"This book certainly is an excellent inter-disciplinary venture presenting detailed analysis of policy changes across the nations and through global institutions on three key environmental issues. Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks should be required reading for a wide spectrum of professionals ranging from scientists to policy researchers, and from politicians to lawmakers. This book possesses great value to anyone who wishes to be informed on how the idea of managing global environmental risks has evolved over time."
- Mirza, Umar Karim. 2002. "Review: Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks (Book)." Electronic Green Journal 17.

"Learning to manage global environmental risks is a major achievement in environmental studies. It combines a highly sophisticated theoretical and analytical framework with an unparalleled wealth of data. The social-constructionist perspective is a self-evident point of departure and this study could be conceived of a a major advancement in discourse analysis."
- van der Heijden, Hein-Anton. 2002. "Risk Management or Environmental Politics?" Environmental Politics 11 (2): 187-192.

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