Environmental Assessment and Judgment Competences A key Issue for ESD

1
Environmental Assessment and Judgment
Competences - A key Issue for ESD
Jan Barkmann Environmental Resource
Economics Institute for Agricultural Economics
Interdisciplinary Centre for Sustainable
Development (IZNE) Georg-August Universität
Göttingen
University of Bath, Octobre 7, 2004, Bath
(United Kingdom)
2
Overview

• ESD and critical thinking skills
• Factual and ethical uncertainties and
  complexities
• Decision-making skills in the face of
  complexity/uncertainty
• ESD and Rational Choice

3
Part 1ESD and critical thinking
1
4
Sustainable Development (SD) and systematic
assessment skills

• urgent global problems
• Brundtland/WCED approach to SD
• ultimately social problems
• (basic) needs, (environmental) justice
• systematically choose suitable course of action
• retinity (SRU/German Council of Environmental
  Advisors 1994)
• interrelatedness of ecology, economy and society
• socio-environmental assessment skills

1
5
Environmental/Scientific Literacy

• Scientific Literacy
• is the capacity to use scientific knowledge, to
  identify questions and to draw evidence-based
  conclusions in order to understand and help make
  decisions about the natural world and the changes
  made to it through human activity. (OECD 1999)
• explore relation to critical thinking

1
6
Environmental/Scientific Literacy

• Scientific Literacy
• is the capacity to use scientific knowledge, to
  identify questions and to draw evidence-based
  conclusions in order to understand and help make
  decisions about the natural world and the changes
  made to it through human activity. (OECD 1999)
• complexity and uncertainty challenges
• factual non-linear logics
• ethical conflicting norms and values

1
7
Definitions of Critical Thinking (Maiorana 1992)

• correct assessment of statements
• find and reflect truth in a domain of knowledge
• productive thinking leading to new knowledge
• analysis, conclusions, criteria-based assessment
• generalisation, innovation, decision-making

1
8
logical, creative and pragmatic aspects

• correct assessment of statements
• find and reflect truth in a domain of knowledge
• productive thinking leading to new knowledge
• analysis, conclusions, criteria-based assessment
• generalisation, innovation, decision-making

1
9
logical, creative and pragmatic aspects

• correct assessment of statements
• find and reflect truth in a domain of knowledge
• productive thinking leading to new knowledge
• analysis, conclusions, criteria-based assessment
• generalisation, innovation, decision-making

1
10
logical, creative and pragmatic aspects

• correct assessment of statements
• find and reflect truth in a domain of knowledge
• productive thinking leading to new knowledge
• analysis, conclusions, criteria-based assessment
• generalisation, innovation, decision-making

1
11
Part 2Factual and ethical uncertainties
and complexities
2
12
Biomagnification
0,02
water
5,3
plankton
concentration of DDD ppm
small fish
10
fish of prey
150
1600
waterfowl
(from Begon, Harper Townsend 1998437)
according to Bögeholz Barkmann 2003
2
13
Factual Complexity
0,02
water

• Humans are able to influence ecosystems
  , but in a complex, non-linear,
  feedback-modified fashion which is unlikely to
  result in precisely the outcomes initially
  planned, and is capable in principle of inducing
  catastrophe. (Scott Gough 20038)

5,3
plankton
10
small fish
?
fish of prey
150
1600
waterfowl
according to Bögeholz Barkmann 2003
2
14

• non-linearities
• exponential growth, threshold effects, positive
  negative feed-back loops, strategic versus
  co-operative action
• spatial and temporal gaps between cause and
  effect
• risks and uncertain knowledge
• focus of cybernetics and systems teaching
• Meadows et al. 1972, Vester 1974
• environmental psychology
• everyday rationality (Dörner 1993137)

2
15
Traditional focus ofenvironmental education

• National BLK Framework for Sustainable
  Development 1998
• systemic, interconnected thinking
• syndroms of global change (WBGU)
• Cassel-Gintz Harenberg 2002, Rost et al. 2003,
  Lauströer et al. 2003

2
16
local example Orchard Assessment

• combines factual and ethical uncertainty/complexit
  y
• relate to critical thinking skills
• Storyline
• three orchards offered
• resources only available for one
• an multi-partisan committee is set up

2
17
local example Orchard Assessment
extensive
intensive
2
18
Description (factual model)
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
2
19
descriptive data/criteria
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
2
20
Suitability of factual model?
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003

• critical thinking
• facts and opinions?
• type of model?
• ecological interconnections?
• systems thinking
• sufficient data quality?

2
21
Ethical Uncertainty/Complexity

• conflicting values
• yield vs. biodiversity?
• yield vs. access?
• aesthetics vs. costs?
• challenges of Sustainable Development
• efficiency vs. (social/intergenerational)
  justice?
• short-term vs. long-term?

2
22
Suitability of normative model?
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003

• critical thinking
• utility versus deontological aspects?
• plurality of values?
• selection of criteria?
• weighing of criteria?

2
23
Intermediate Summary

• In the face of
• urgent problems of sustainable development,
• beset with factual and ethical complexity/uncertai
  nty,
• students and citizens need
• systematic skills for
• socio-environmental assessment and
  decision-making.
  

2
24
Part 3Decision-making skills in the face
of complexity/uncertainty
3
25
Definition I

• Ecological assessment competence is the skill
• to systematically connect
• ecological knowledge
• to relevant socio-environmental values
• in order to prepare judgments on alternative
  courses of action.

3
26
Definition II

• Ecological judgment competence
• includes the reflection on (own) norms and values
  
• and the communication skills for a search for
  consensus or fair compromise.

3
27
according to Bögeholz Barkmann 2003
3
28
Systematic Assessment Skills

• instruction strategy explicit assessment
• identification, selection, justification,
  weighing, and combination of assessment criteria
• critical thinking in deliberative setting
• first empirical studies
• huge deficits in high-school students and teacher
  students
• aesthetic criteria not regarded as appropriate
• explicit assessment fosters recognition of
  plurality of values

3
29
Part 4ESD and Rational Choice
4
30
Economic or instrumental rationality

• choose best course of action
• maximise goal attainment with given means
  (maximise profit or utility)
• attain goal while minimising the employment of
  means (minimise costs)

4
31
orchard assessment criteria
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
4
32
orchard assessment criteria
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
4
33
weighing factor
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
4
34
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
4
35
computation and decision
according to Barkmann Bögeholz 2003, Bögeholz
Barkmann 2003
4
36
economic assessment methods

• real world situations
• landscape planning, transportantion
  infrastrukture planning
• policy impact assessments
• algorithm (Bastian Schreiber 199961)
• define goal
• select assessment procedure
• define criteria and measurement protocols
• sample data
• weigh and combine criteria
• interpret result (decision-making)
• rational choice based on systematic assessment

4
37
economic assessment methods

• real world situations
• landscape planning, transportantion
  infrastrukture planning
• policy impact assessments
• algorithm (Bastian Schreiber 199961)
• define goal
• select assessment procedure
• define criteria and measurement protocols
• sample data
• weigh and combine criteria
• interpret result (decision-making)
• rational choice based on systematic assessment
• UK predominance of CBA?

4
38
Rational Choice

• descriptive social science paradigm
• actors
• preferences (goals)
• resources/restrictions
• rules
• hard rational choice
• goals are given (not questioned)
• one rule maximise self-interest
• educationally, questionable paradigm
• UK CBA questionable?

4
39
The answer explicit assessment
use economic rationality,but apply critical
thinking in deliberative setting onethical
complexity

• define goal
• define criteria
• weight and combine criteria
• interpret result (decision-making)

4
40
CBA? - explicit assessment!
take care of environmental justice!
account for (all) TEV components

• define goal
• define criteria
• weight and combine criteria
• interpret result (decision-making)

K.O. criteria?social justice? discounting? moneta
ry weights?
safe minimum standards? competing projects?
4
41
Philosophical Background

• Habermasian Discourse Ethics
• cognitivist ethics
• fusion of deontological and utilitarian ideas
• mind the consequences, but do so from a common
  goods perspetive
• differences
• focus on norms and values
• definition of value-based norms for the design of
  the shared world
• exploit/employ part of the system
• formal/economics decision-making aids, computer
  models
• to prevent the actual colonisation of the
  lifeworld by better organised, vested interests

4
42
Limits

• emancipative
• but not necessarily radical discourse
• empowering device
• but not necessarily challenging power relations
• encourages the recognition of a plurality of
  values, and the conventional character of
  scientific decision-making
• but maintains the possibility/ desirability of
  truthful descriptions, informed consent and fair
  compromise
• a modern, not a post-modern approach.

4
43
Summary

• Sustainable Development (Education) requires
  skills for systematic decision-making in the face
  of factual and ethical complexity.
• Skill levels of ecological assessment and
  judgment competences likely very low.
• Partial adoption of economics-style rationality
  required
• but in a deliberative and critical thinking
  setting.

44
Thank you very much!