Picking Up the Pieces

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Frames: principled ways of selecting and sorting experience to construct theories of what happens, why, and what difference it makes.

Single loop learning: learning that does not question the basic assumptions that help construct frames (e.g., planetary movement in pre-Copernican solar system).

Double loop learning: learning that questions the basic assumptions defining dominant frames (e.g., the pre-Copernican presumption that the sun moves round the Earth).

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“Path dependency” or “lock-ins” Fossil fuel use▪ 2008 election slogan: “Drill, Baby, Drill”▪ Oil “addiction” (Lehner)

Infrastructures ▪ Rig as investment – estimated replacement

cost = $600 million in 2010 Politics of technology▪ Interests locked into technological design

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Corruption and capture Mixed responsibilities, conflicts of interest▪ Long history in environmental domain▪ EPA vs. USDA▪ EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Atomic

Energy Commission▪ Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food in the UK

“Normalization of deviance” Information blockages and blinders Resistance to change

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As of September 12, 2011, Source: House Energy and Commerce Committee

Risk framework Risks are knowable in advance▪ Obama: “facts, not hope”

Risks can be assessed, managed, controlled▪ “sound science of risk assessment”

Remedies are available for damages▪ Politics of insurance (BP as self-insurer, BP vs.

Transocean)▪ Compare nuclear power (Price Anderson Act)

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Fuel as usual New oil drilling permit granted March 2011 Keystone XL (Tar Sands) pipeline debate

Organizational reforms Demise of MMS Creation of BOEMRE (Bureau of Ocean Energy

Management, Regulation and Enforcement)▪ What’s in a name?

Reorganization of BOEMRE▪ Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)▪ Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

(BSEE)

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New technologies (Krupp and Horn, Lehner)

Conservation and efficiency

Renewable energy sources

Protest

New utopias (car-free cities)9/14/11 ESPP-78 9