Public Participation In Sustainability Science

Download or read book Public Participation in Sustainability Science written by Bernd Kasemir and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-04-10 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses how citizens can participate more effectively in sustainability science and environmental policy debates. It discusses designs for participatory procedures, and experiences of their application to issues of global change. While the focus is on citizen participation, the involvement of specific stakeholders - including water managers and venture capitalists - is also addressed. The book describes how focus group methods were combined with the interactive use of computer models into new forms of participation, tested with six hundred citizens. The results are discussed in relation to other important topics, including greenhouse gas and water management. By combining this with an examination of issues of interactive governance and developing country participation, the book provides state-of-the-art, practical insights for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

Download or read book Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-11-07 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.

Download or read book Citizen Science written by Janis L. Dickinson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-07 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citizen science enlists members of the public to make and record useful observations, such as counting birds in their backyards, watching for the first budding leaf in spring, or measuring local snowfall. The large numbers of volunteers who participate in projects such as Project FeederWatch or Project BudBurst collect valuable research data, which, when pooled together, create an enormous body of scientific data on a vast geographic scale. In return, such projects aim to increase participants' connections to science, place, and nature, while supporting science literacy and environmental stewardship. In Citizen Science, experts from a variety of disciplines—including scientists and education specialists working at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where many large citizen science programs use birds as proxies for biodiversity—share their experiences of creating and implementing successful citizen science projects, primarily those that use massive data sets gathered by citizen scientists to better understand the impact of environmental change. This first and foundational book for this developing field of inquiry addresses basic aspects of how to conduct citizen science projects, including goal-setting, program design, and evaluation, as well as the nuances of creating a robust digital infrastructure and recruiting a large participant base through communications and marketing. An overview of the types of research approaches and techniques demonstrates how to make use of large data sets arising from citizen science projects. A final section focuses on citizen science's impacts and its broad connections to understanding the human dimensions and educational aspects of participation. Citizen Science teaches teams of program developers and researchers how to cross the bridge from success at public engagement to using citizen science data to understand patterns and trends or to test hypotheses about how ecological processes respond to change at large geographic scales. Intended as a resource for a broad audience of experts and practitioners in natural sciences, information science, and social sciences, this book can be used to better understand how to improve existing programs, develop new ones, and make better use of the data resources that have accumulated from citizen science efforts. Its focus on harnessing the impact of "crowdsourcing" for scientific and educational endeavors is applicable to a wide range of fields, especially those that touch on the importance of massive collaboration aimed at understanding and conserving what we can of the natural world.

Download or read book Public Participation, Science and Society written by Mikko Rask and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-14 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of public participation is developing fast, with phenomena such as citizen science and crowdsourcing extending the resource base of research, stimulating innovation and making science more accessible to the general population. Promoting public participation means giving more weight to citizens and civil society actors in the definition of research needs and in the implementation of research and innovation. As yet, there is limited understanding of the implications of widespread use of public participation and as a result, there is a risk that it will become a burden for research and an obstacle to bridging the gap between research and society. This volume presents the findings of a three-year international study on innovative public participation. The resulting work studies the characteristics and trends of innovative public participation through a global sample of 38 case studies. It provides theoretical generalisations on the dynamics of public participation, suggestions for an evaluation framework and clear empirical examples of how public participation works in practice. Illustrated by best practice cases, the authors identify characteristics which contribute to successful public participation. The book is aimed primarily at scholars and practitioners of public participation, as well as research managers, policy makers and business actors interested in related issues. There is also a secondary market for students and scholars of European governance studies, sociology and political sciences.

Download or read book The Role of Public Participation in Energy Transitions written by Ortwin Renn and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-04-04 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Role of Public Participation in Energy Transitions provides a conceptual and empirical approach to stakeholder and citizen involvement in the ongoing energy transition conversation, focusing on projects surrounding energy conversion and efficiency, reducing energy demand, and using new forms of renewable energy sources. Sections review and contrast different approaches to citizen involvement, discuss the challenges of inclusive participation in complex energy policymaking, and provide conceptual foundations for the empirical case studies that constitute the second part of the book. The book is a valuable resource for academics in the field of energy planning and policymaking, as well as practitioners in energy governance, energy and urban planners and participation specialists. Explains both key concepts in public participation and involvement, along with empirical results gained in implementing these concepts Links theoretical knowledge with conceptual and real-life applications in the energy sector Instructs energy planners in how to improve planning and transformation processes by using inclusive governance methods Contains insights from case studies in the fully transitioned German system that provide an empirical basis for action for energy policymakers worldwide

Download or read book Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making written by Stephen P. Depoe and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2004-02-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the critical role of community members and other interested parties in environmental policy decision making.

Download or read book Remaking Participation written by Jason Chilvers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Changing relations between science and democracy – and controversies over issues such as climate change, energy transitions, genetically modified organisms and smart technologies – have led to a rapid rise in new forms of public participation and citizen engagement. While most existing approaches adopt fixed meanings of ‘participation’ and are consumed by questions of method or critiquing the possible limits of democratic engagement, this book offers new insights that rethink public engagements with science, innovation and environmental issues as diverse, emergent and in the making. Bringing together leading scholars on science and democracy, working between science and technology studies, political theory, geography, sociology and anthropology, the volume develops relational and co-productionist approaches to studying and intervening in spaces of participation. New empirical insights into the making, construction, circulation and effects of participation across cultures are illustrated through examples ranging from climate change and energy to nanotechnology and mundane technologies, from institutionalised deliberative processes to citizen-led innovation and activism, and from the global north to global south. This new way of seeing participation in science and democracy opens up alternative paths for reconfiguring and remaking participation in more experimental, reflexive, anticipatory and responsible ways. This ground-breaking book is essential reading for scholars and students of participation across the critical social sciences and beyond, as well as those seeking to build more transformative participatory practices.