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Introduction: Governing Wicked Problems, J. B. Ruhl, J. Salzman
Introduction: Governing Wicked Problems, J. B. Ruhl, J. Salzman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
“Wicked problems.” It just says it all. Persistent social problems—poverty, food insecurity, climate change, drug addiction, pollution, and the list goes on—seem aptly condemned as wicked. But what makes them wicked, and what are we to do about them? The concept of wicked problems as something more than a generic description has its origins in the late 1960s. Professor Horst Rittel of the University of California, Berkeley, Architecture Department posed the term in a seminar to describe “that class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with …
Beyond Wickedness: Managing Complex Systems And Climate Change, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan M. Gilligan
Beyond Wickedness: Managing Complex Systems And Climate Change, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan M. Gilligan
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article examines the argument that climate change is a "super wicked" problem. It concludes that the wicked problem concept is best viewed as a rhetorical device that served a valuable function in arguing against technocratic hubris in the early 1970s but is unhelpful and possibly counterproductive as a tool for modern climate policy analysis. Richard Lazarus improved on this analysis by emphasizing the urgency of a climate response in his characterization of the climate problem as "super wicked." We suggest another approach based on Charles Lindblom's "science of muddling through." The muddling through approach supports the rhetorical points for …
What Happens When The Green New Deal Meets The Old Green Laws?, J. B. Ruhl, James Salzman
What Happens When The Green New Deal Meets The Old Green Laws?, J. B. Ruhl, James Salzman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The multi-faceted infrastructure goals of the Green New Deal will be impossible to achieve in the desired time frames if the existing federal, state, and local siting and environmental protection statutory regimes are applied. Business, labor, property rights, environmental protection, and social justice interests will use them to grind the Green New Deal to a snail's pace. Using the renewable energy transition as the infrastructure case study, this Essay is a call to arms for the need to design New Green Laws for the Green New Deal. Part I briefly summarizes what we are learning about the pace and magnitude …