Class Topics: 

• The Whitehouse on Greenhouse Gases
• The Policy Cycle
• Constitutional Constraints
• Incrementalism
• Interest Group Politics
• Environmentalism and its Critics
• The Public and Environmentalism
• Science in Policymaking

Readings:     

 Chapter 2 of Walter Ronsenbaum's Environmental Politics and Policy. (10th Ediction), Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Homework Assignment:           

1. The author raises some very serious questions about the future of environmentalism as a force in the policy process and points out a number of factors that temper the desire of environmentalists to radically change public policy. Summarize those pertinent factors discussed in this chapter.
2. Present a case of why environmentalism has either gone too far or not far enough.
3. Distinguish between how the policy process actually functions as compared to how it is often politically portrayed as functioning.