Public Affairs Discussion Group

Dirty Water: A Critical Look at Regulatory, Cooperative, and Market-based Solutions to the Nation's Growing Water Pollution Problem

Howard Ernst, Ph.D. - Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy



Friday March 18, 2011
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall - Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University

Since passage of the Clean Water Act four decades ago there have been some noticeable improvements in the conditions of bodies of water -- including in the Cleveland area. Yet degradation continues in other areas, particularly the oceans. It is relatively easy to reduce pollution from large, identifiable point sources, such as factories, in bodies of water that are under the jurisdiction of one government. It is much more difficult to address problems with pollution from dispersed sources (e.g. runoff) or in bodies of water influenced by many governments (e.g. Chesapeake Bay). The difficulty is compounded by ideological disagreements about policy methods.

Sponsored by the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Leadership

There will be no parking available in the visitors lot next to Crawford Hall from March 29th until April 29th. A few of the handicapped parking spaces may still be available but space will be severely limited. Parking options for visitors from beyond campus include the Severance Hall parking garage on East Boulevard, the small lot on Adelbert Road just uphill from Euclid Ave, and other lots on campus.

More About Our Guest....

Dr. Howard Ernst serves as an Associate Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy, Senior Scholar University of Virginia's Center for Politics, and as a Non-Resident Fellow at Gettysburg College's Eisenhower Institute. He received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia in the spring of 2000. While at the University of Virginia, Dr. Ernst received several of the school's highest academic awards, including: the Governor's Fellowship, the Bradley Fellowship, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellowship. Since arriving at the Naval Academy in the fall of 2000, Dr. Ernst has taught U.S. Government and Constitutional Development; Research Methods; Environmental Politics and Security; Interest Groups, Parties and Elections; The Legislative Process; and numerous capstone courses and honor students. He served as the coordinator for the Naval Academy's core course, U.S. Government and Constitutional Development (2003-2010) and as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Air Force Academy during his sabbatical (2006). In 2004, Dr. Ernst received an honorable mention for the Naval Academy's APGAR Teaching Award. He continues to serve as a founding participant in the USNA Wiki Grant (2008-present) and currently directs the Political Science Department's Honors program.

Dr. Ernst's research focuses on the American political system and gives close attention to citizen influence over the policy process. He is considered a leading authority in the area environmental politics and an expert on the politics of the Chesapeake Bay restoration. He has published widely, including six books, and has collaborated with leading scholars in several subfields of Political Science. His books include: Dangerous Democracy? The Battle over Ballot Initiatives in America (2001, contributing coeditor); Chesapeake Bay Blues: Science, Politics, and the Struggle to Save the Bay (2003, author); The Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections (2005, contributing coeditor); The Political Science Toolbox: A Research Companion to American Government (2008, coauthor); Clash of Ideals: Cases in American Political Development (2009, coauthor); and Fight for the Bay: Why a Dark Green Political Awakening is Needed to Save the Chesapeake Bay (2009, author). Dr. Ernst has also authored or coauthored numerous peer reviewed articles and book chapters, including: "The Promise and Pitfalls of Differentiated Instruction for Undergraduate Political Science Courses," The Journal of Political Science Education (2005, co-author) and "Civic Education and the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic Orientations in Post-Apartheid South Africa," Political Psychology (2005, co-author).

Dr. Ernst has developed a national reputation for his work in the area of environmental policy and natural resource management. His research in this area exemplifies his desire to span multiple academic disciplines. His environmental policy texts have been adopted in courses as diverse as a graduate seminar at Yale University's School of Forestry, New York University's School of Law, and Johns Hopkins University's School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, in addition to dozens of public policy courses taught in political science departments throughout the country. His books have been highlighted in numerous media outlets, including the Washington Post, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, Voice of America, and a PBS Frontline documentary. Ernst's work has resulted in invitations to testify before Congress and to guest lecture at institutions such as Case Western Reserve, Yale University, New York University, Johns Hopkins University, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Institute, and other centers of higher education. Ernst's accomplishments have led to his selection as a Senior Scholar at University of Virginia's Center for Politics and as Public Policy Fellow at Gettysburg College's Eisenhower Institute where he directs the Troubled Waters Program.

Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

March 25: Mark Votruba, Associate Professor of Economics: The Social Effects of Economic Dislocation

April 1: Jacqueline Lipton, Professor and Associate Dean of Law: Privacy and Online Social Networks.

April 8: Special Inamori Center Event.

April 15: Mark Naymik, Reporter, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio's Budget Battle

April 22: Jon Groetzinger, Visiting Professor of Law and Director, China Legal Programs: Developing the Legal Profession in China.

The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of Crawford Hall. Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made. On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion. Overflow parking is also available in the Severance Hall parking garage on East Boulevard.

Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building. The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch. On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.

For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs, please see http://policy.case.edu.

March 14, 2011

Upcoming Events

Getting US-Pakistan Relations Right: What is at Stake

Professor C. Christine Fair, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University, March 24, 2011, 4:30 p.m., Inamori Center for Ethics and Excellence, Crawford Hall, Case Western Reserve University. This program is co-sposored by the Inamori Center for Ethics and Excellence and the department of political science at Case Western Reserve University.

Professor C. Christine Fair will discuss general policy challenges before Washington as it deals with Pakistan from the optic of the war in Afghanistan, the "Global War on Terrorism,"and other issues of regional and international security.

C.Christine Fair has a Ph.D. from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations (2004) at the University of Chicago and an MA from the Harris School of Public Policy (1997) also at the University of Chicago. Currently she is an assistant professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS) at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point and a Research Fellow with the National Bureau of Asia Research's National Asia Research Program. Prior to joining Georgetown, she served as a Senior Political Scientist with the RAND Corporation, a Political Officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a Senior Research Associate with the United States Institute of Peace, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. Her research focuses upon political and military affairs in South Asia. She is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and the Journal of Strategic Studies and is an Associate Editor of India Review.

Creativity, Copyright, and the Universal Library: Romanticism and Writing at Times of Media Revolution

Adrian Johns, Ph.D., Professor of History at the University of Chicago, April 12, 2011, 4:00 p.m., Moot Courtroom (A59), Case Western Reserve University School of Law, 11075 East Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio. Organized by the Center for the Study of Writing in conjunction with the Department of English, the Department of History, the School of Law, and the Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University.

Google's ambition to produce a massive online 'library' of digitized books has provoked passionate reactions from the publishing industry, authors, and other groups. In fact, debates over the purpose and possible impact of 'universal' libraries are nothing new, and in the past such debates have had a significant impact on the constitution of the information economy itself. I want to draw attention to a particularly consequential conflict, which raged in the years around 1800. As publishing took on its modern form, and with the advent of new printing technologies, Britain's parliament proposed that copyright law be used to create a universal deposit library. Tying commercial print to the collection of learning would, in its eyes, lead to the climax of Enlightenment. But the project proved unexpectedly controversial. An alliance of poets, antiquarians, naturalists, and publishers fought bitterly against the scheme, arguing on Romantic grounds that it betrayed the very nature of creativity. By collecting the output of an industrial, proprietary publishing sector, it would immortalize mediocrity and demoralize future generations. The outcome of the contest was a critically important change in copyright itself -- one that has survived to play a major role in shaping the Google debate, in our own moment of radical change in media and information.

Professor Johns is the author of Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information Age (2010); Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (2009); and The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998), as well as numerous articles on the histories of the book, science, and intellectual property. Educated at Cambridge University, Johns taught at the University of California, San Diego, and Caltech before joining the University of Chicago faculty.