Linking Science and Technology to Society's Environmental Goals by Policy Division

Author:Policy Division
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Environment and Environmental Studies
Publisher: NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Published: 1996-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

States' Goals For The Environment

After more than two decades of federal dominance of the environmental policy agenda, states are beginning to reassert their role in setting goals and priorities for environmental quality within their borders. State environmental agencies have assumed greater responsibilities as they have developed additional technical and legal capacity.3 Three approaches to setting priorities and implementing a strategic agenda are capturing state attention: (a) comparing the risks posed by environmental problems and comparing the efficacy of alternative strategies for risk reduction; (b) tracking environmental "indicators" and publishing them in annual "state-of-the-environment" reports; and (c) setting measurable environmental goals and tracking progress toward them.

Together, these three approaches have the potential to help states and cities focus on serious problems, track the problems and the jurisdiction's effectiveness at dealing with them, and provide the impetus for corrective actions that will keep the state or city moving in the chosen direction. Most of the environmental agencies using these approaches have integrated them into a public education/public involvement strategy. The reports and indicators are designed specifically to give voters the technical information they need to make more informed choices about environmental priorities and policies and to bolster the connection between the public and their agencies. Some states have tried one or two of these approaches; several states have linked all three. The combination of the three approaches could approximate the kind of consensus-building forum envisioned by the Carnegie reports, and could strengthen the incentives for the S&T community to address serious longer-term problems.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.