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PART 1: CONCEPTS
Environmental Conflicts and Divergent Scientific Opinion ADR:The Scientific Round-Table & Conflict Management The Scientific Round-Table is a structured Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") process to evaluate and resolve divergent viewpoints on scientific and technical issues in environmental conflicts. This problem solving pathway was developed and applied by Dr Ted Christie for assessing, managing and resolving environmental conflicts: Conflicts undertaken external to and independent of the courts. 1.0 Resolving information conflicts through the use of the scientific round-table, provides a problem-solving pathway for achieving meaningful involvement of competing interests in conflict resolution. 2.0 The goal of the scientific round-table would be to ensure that the outcome was consistent with the standards and criteria used by science for evaluating the relevance and reliability of a scientific finding or theory. 3.0 That is, by relying on the enduring criteria of testability, objectivity and impartiality - together with the test for acceptance of widespread consensus within the scientific community following peer review and publication. 4.0 The scientific round-table would also facilitate reaching a negotiated outcome that was equitable: That is, one that minimized the extent to which environmental costs and benefits were shared disproportionately between Government, industry and the community. Environmental justice would prevail if these goals were achieved. READ MORE on the underlying concepts and principles of the scientific round-table and their application in the following article: - COVID-19 Pandemic Review Process
Case Study: A Problem-Solving Pathway to Resolve Controversy Over Fuel Load, Hazard Reduction Burns, Risk Analysis and Bushfires:
A Royal Commission or a Scientific Round-Table? (Posted 14 January 2020)
TAGS: Bushfires; Australia; climate change; hazard reduction; fuel load; ecology; window of opportunity; risk; threatened species; critical habitat; resilience; scientific round-table; royal commission; conflict resolution 1.0 The 2019-2020 bush fire season in Australia was one of the worst fire seasons on record. The total area of land burned during the current bushfire season now exceeds 10.7 million hectares (26.4 million acres). 2.0 All Australian mainland States have been impacted. Thousands of homes have been destroyed; 27 people have been killed. There have been significant impacts on native fauna and their habitat. 3.0 Public and political comment has identified a number of key interests that need to be satisfied. They form a framework for risk management of bushfires in Australia: (i) Understanding fuel load, hazard reduction issues and climate change; (ii) The need for a national plan or policy for hazard reduction; (iii) The need for a Royal Commission or Inquiry into the current crisis; and (iv) The need to consider resilience of communities, as well as ecological communities, as goals. All these issues are reviewed. Dr Ted Christie has had key roles in two public interest environmental Commissions of Inquiry – as Principal Adviser to the Commission Chair, Tony Fitzgerald QC, in Queensland's Fraser Island Commission of Inquiry and as Chair of its independent External Scientific Expert Review Panel; and as a Commissioner, Commonwealth Shoalwater Bay Commission of Inquiry. PART 2: OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICT APPLICATIONS
1.0 Evaluation of the Adani Project ~ A Need for Review? Resolving Public Interest Environmental Conflicts: The Scientific Roundtable ~ A More Effective Role for Science
TAGS: Adani; coal; EIA; development; environment; evaluation; scientific evidence; information conflicts; approval; conflict management; scientific roundtable (Posted 09 July 2019) 1.0 After almost nine years, nine legal reviews and $3.7 billion in “start-up” costs, the ‘Adani Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project’ was finally approved by the Queensland Government in June 2019. It will be one of the largest coal mines in the world. 2.0 Why have the planning and evaluation processes taken so long? Must the history of conflict and delay repeat? 3.0 Some form of objective review of the environmental evaluation and approval processes for Adani is warranted to offset this concern. 4.0 This article outlines why the scientific roundtable needs to be considered in any review of the Adani evaluation and approval processes as it provides science with a more effective and direct role to resolve information conflicts in public interest environmental disputes. 2.0 Water Resources Management Problem Solving - Ecological Health of the Murray-Darling Basin River System and the Public Interest: Fish Kills in the Lower Darling River and Conflict Management (Posted 18 January 2019) TAGS: Murray-Darling Basin; fish kills; reliable and relevant scientific evidence; information conflicts; conflict management; scientific round-table; conflict resolution 1.0 The Murray-Darling Basin river system is Australia’s longest river system & contains Australia’s 3 longest rivers. 2.0 The Basin Plan was developed to manage the Basin as a whole connected system. 3.0 A new controversy - ecological health of part of the river system - has now arisen: A fish kill of around one million dead fish covering a 40km stretch of the Darling River. 4.0 Divergent scientific and political opinion exists as to the cause of the fish kills. 5.0 The situation has been described by politicians as a “devastating ecological event” and “an ecological disaster”. What problem-solving pathways exist to manage and resolve this public interest environment conflict in order to find a solution that is firm, can be implemented and is sustainable? The Scientific Round-Table is one such option. 3.1 Climate Change, Carbon Models and LULUCF Activities F(Utility) of Carbon Modelling and Conflict Assessment (Posted 2 May 2016)
TAGS: Climate change; carbon dioxide; sources; sinks; LULUCF; scientific uncertainty; known unknowns; IPCC; GOSAT; NASA OCO-2; Case Study-Queensland’s tree clearing laws
3.2 Climate Change, Carbon Models and LULUCF Activities Conflict Management: Resolving Divergent Scientific Opinion TAGS: CO2; sampling strategy; model validation; sensitivity analysis; information conflict; Task Force National GHG Inventories; scientific round-table; Daubert’s case US Supreme Court; reliable and relevant science; objective criteria; C3- C4- Photosynthesis Respiration (Posted 9 May 2016)
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